Purpose

The purpose of this article is to describe the contemporary traditional church as it is commonly experienced today and how it differs from the early church.

Main

In this article we are thinking of the "modern" church and the "traditional" church as kind of the same thing. We just mean that there is a normal way of doing church that is somewhat "traditional" and it is characterisc of our modern age. If you read your Bible, you find a different kind of church or a different way of doing church. They met in homes for one example. So we are just using the term "modern" and "traditional" to distinguish these ways of doing church from the early church. The early church is what we read about in the Bible. The other trend is just the perspective that wants to do church that way. Normally, we experience a modern kind of church way in our modern times. Normally, we experience a church that has inherited traditions over the years, so things look different now. We like the early church and the other trend perspective, but we also want to get along well with the traditional church. ^{1.justinpeters}

Most Christians have never heard of the other trend and would be quite uncomfortable with it. Most Christians these days feel free to change the style/practice/ways of early church, even if the apostles were behind many of the decisions. Many Christians like the changes that have happened over the many years since the Bible days. Most Christians would not like to think about how we could get closer to imitating the apostles in how they did church.

This article documents this perspective and those Christians who like the traditional church model. These Christians like a church building and would not want to go to church in a home. These Christians expect a pastoral sermon to be preached every Sunday and would be disappointed if it was missing. This is the dominant church model these days, so we could add 100s of references. Here is one example, but we could find many more in support of this perspective. tabletalkmagazine.com/why-we-need-pastors/ These Christians usually like the denomination they are associated with. They may be part of a small church or a large church. It may be traditional or contemporary. It may be casual or formal. It may have litergy or not. It may use the KJV only or not. We call all of these kinds of churches "traditional" compared to the radically different other trend.

Here is video from Mike Winger that demonstrates his very traditional assumptions. He speaks about "church", "pastors", etc, with traditional church assumptions. youtube.com/MikeWinger Then he makes some anti other trend comments. We think these comments are somewhat superficial because Mike is focused on another purpose (He is encouraging people to not give up on church, and we agree with him). But in the process, he does make a few points that we can see is very traditional. He makes some implications about other trend that we find invalid/shallow/superficial, etc. Of course a Christian should be involved in the "ekklesia" and not avoiding other Christians. But he misses the point that typical traditional churches can be thought of as "rogue" when they operate in the same town and ignore each other. It is possible to be more city/town focused while attending a home assembly than some from his traditional perspective. He says home based assembly is weird even though it is very normal in the New Testament. We find his perspective influenced by tradition and not as close to following the apostles than those in the other trend perspective like NTRF. We don't want to make a big deal about this. We just observe that he has a perspective and it may seem right until someone from the other perspective enters the conversation.

Here is another video that we like that floats somewhere in between the two views (traditional and the other trend). We like his thinking and his greater open-ness to how the apostles may have intended. youtube.com/StephenCrosby-ekklesia-I youtube.com/part-II

We would like to document more of the reasoning for why some people feel that the traditional church is best. There is a mindset that is very content looking at modern books on church organization (e.g. 501(c)(3)) and how to do church well (from this perspective). There are countless books on church growth (that assume this perspective). There are church development organizations that sometimes help the "staff" do church better (that assume this perspective). This is a mindset. This article is a placeholder for information supporting this model and how it contrasts with the other trend. This is not our preference, but it is the view of the vast majority of the Christians we know. This is the popular mindset of our day. The other trend is a small minority perspective. Almost all the churches in our local area have the traditional church mindset. We know of no church and almost no person who thinks that the church should be more like the early church (the other trend perspective).

If we find the need, we will continue to add information in support of how people justify the perspective of the "traditional" church. But we do not currently have these "justified" arguements clear and we do not agree with these ideas so it is hard to write about. But we will add more here if we find friends who support this perspective and have some reasonable justification.

In summary, we would like to encourage both sides to continue to follow the apostles and what we think they would want us to do. We generally try to look for the early church ways because we think this is important. But the others who follow the traditional model are often saying they value this too. So it is a good thing if we both value following the scriptures. We would like to encourage following the apostles since they were the ones who laid down the foundations of the church. The apostles were authorized by Jesus to establish the church. We would do well to follow the commands and traditions of the apostles. Of course we do no support an overly obsessive following of every single way of living that the apostles had. We only observe that the apostles talk about "imitating" them, so there were many things that we ought to imitate. We are not focusing on cultural differences. But when someone says that the early church met in homes out of necessity, we immediately see that they are pushing an agenda. What happens if they could have met outdoors like they did at the temple. They could have built small church buildings. But we (our perspective) is that the apostles chose to meet in homes because it was a design choice. It works with the 1 Corintians 14 church model and does not work well with the regular sermon model. The home based church model works well with a regular full meal Lord's Supper, but the traditional church works best with a "thimble of grape juice" token meal. We don't want to go into details. We just want to start you noticing that the argument may be flawed. Please don't just say, they met in homes out of necessity without reading more from the other trend perspective. It is better to say, we just don't like that early church meeting in homes way of doing things. We would rather do it our way and follow our own traditions. Please don't say what you don't know about why the apostles always met in homes in every church and every city (to the best of our knowledge).

Many things have changed over the years. And we have to figure out how best to do church in these modern days. So whatever your preference is... traditional... or early church style, we all should look to Jesus and his apostles who he put in charge of establishing the church. But we would like to encourage a strong committment to following the apostles. We would like everyone (from both perspectives) to think highly of the biblical story of the early church and how the apostles founded the church. Of course we should be wary of the early church problems that were meant to be warnings. We believe the early church story was written for our instruction.

We like many leaders, apologists, pastors, etc., who think from the traditional church perspective. We don't think they understand some things quite right, but we really appreciate some of them. When there are attacks, like in the following video, we are strongly on their side. Someone may appear to be teaching the views of the "other trend", but when we see this kind of attack, we are sad. We support those like Jusin Peters who are being attacked by others who "seem" to be stricly following the Bible.

This is a sad video showing conflict, and showing fundamental issues with the one attacking. This is sad to see. Unfortunately, this is an example of "Christians" not getting along. But whatever the case, we can't help but feel sad to see and hear about this conflict.

In this particular video (we only saw about half of it, then had to stop), we are strongly on Justin Peters side. One of our favorite small details is his listing of Zambia, as one of the countries he has been to on his speaking engagements. That is kind of special to me having grown up there to age 10.

youtube.com/JustinPeters