When it comes to music in the church service, the authors trace the beginning of “spectator vs. audience” to the adoption of boys choirs, borrowed from Greek culture.  Page 161:  “The first boys’ choirs were actually established by pagans who worshipped Greco-Roman gods.  These pagans believed that the voice of young boys possessed special powers.”  By implication, the authors seem to be saying that either Christians believe the same or perhaps that because the Greeks believed that the voices of young boys possessed special powers, young boys should not be allowed to sing?

The book goes on.  The Reformation saw a move back towards congregational singing and the use of instruments.  Contemporary churches have moved to the “worship team.”

The authors ask the poignant question:  “Perhaps you’re wondering, What’s wrong with having a choir leader, a worship leader, or a worship team to lead the church’s singing? Nothing…if every member of the church is content with it” (p. 166, italics in the original).  Did you catch that?  It’s okay…if every member of the church is content with it.  It seems to me that the desires and wishes of every member of the church are not the criteria by which the church runs.  What happened to “the Lordship of Christ”?  I don’t think the authors realized the implication of what they were saying.

Their recommendation:  “…many Christians feel that it robs God’s people of a vital function:  to select and lead their own singing in the meetings—to have divine worship in their own hands—to allow Jesus Christ to direct the singing of His church rather than have it led by a human facilitator” (p. 166).  Again, this seems to say more about what people want than about what God wants.

The authors then describe the early church, which was “marked by these very features.  Listen to Paul’s description of a first-century church meeting:  ‘Every one of you hath a psalm’ (1 Corinthians 14:26).  ‘Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs’ (Ephesians 5:19, NIV).  Consider the words ‘every one of you’” (p. 166).  Interestingly, not everyone is invited to sing—he says speak to one another.  Psalms are not necessarily songs.  They go on: “Song leaders, choirs, and worship teams make this impossible by limiting the headship of Christ—specifically His ministry of leading His brethren into singing praise songs to his Father” (p. 160).  Again, as has been stated in previous chapters, this is true if we don’t consistently see God raising up leadership in various aspects in the church.  A “spiritual mob” is not described nor implied in scripture.

Here is where it gets interesting.  Frank Viola says, “For almost twenty years I have gathered with churches where every member has been trained to start a song spontaneously.  Imagine:  Every brother and sister free to lead songs under the headship of Christ—even to write his or her own songs and bring them to the meeting for all to learn….Someone starts a song and everyone joins in.  Then someone else begins another song, and so worship continues without long pauses and with no visible leader present.  This is exactly how the first-century Christians worshipped, by the way” (p. 161).

Wait, what?  “Exactly how the first-century Christians worshipped”?  In a book that is meticulously documented, this sentence’s footnote is conspicuously absent.  Given what we know from scripture, how could Frank Viola possibly know “exactly how the early church worshipped”?  It seems to me that his agenda has far outstripped his facts here.

It seems to me that we are facing off “my experience” vs. “your experience” here.

Here’s my experience:  Music is very close to my heart and there is almost nothing I enjoy more than being part of a highly skilled and spiritually-intentional worship band.  The Bible is clear that the marriage relationship is one of the highest expressions of Christ’s relationship with the church—the kind of relationship that, when healthy, expresses the love and dedication that reveals God to the world.  In my mind, playing in a worship band can come close.  There is a mutual respect, a mutual listening, a unity that can make you lost in the music and focused on Jesus that I have rarely experienced in other settings.

This can require practice and it certainly requires skill.  I may be reading to much between the lines, but Viola’s example does not seem to require any skill whatsoever.  In fact, I have known people that claimed to be “skilled musicians” who played “as the Spirit led,” but from everybody else’s point of view, they were awful.  Where is the place for musical gifts without planning, leadership, and teamwork?

As a final word, in our own church we are very intentional to avoid a show/spectator mentality.  We encourage people to participate and be part of a united whole.  And once again, in our small groups there are also plenty of opportunities to experiment with worship, musically and in other ways.

Has our church become a Museum? Are we looking to keep human traditions alive rather than embracing the future and getting the gospel to the next generation?

Is our church very much like a Mall, the ultimate symbol of self-centeredness and consumerism or is it clearly a place for Christian selflessness, sacrifice and compassion?

When I was about to leave Argentina to come to Canada as an executive with American Express my Christian friends prayed: “We release David to be a missionary to Canada”. When I told this to Canadian Christians many just laughed at me “We don’t need missionaries, we send missionaries!” The truth is that Canada has always been a mission field (as long as there are lost people who need to be reached for Christ).

You can read the rest of the blogpost here:

David A. MacFarlane Blog – Our church a: Museum, Mall, or Mission?

The strongest statement they make is that “[w]earing our ‘Sunday best’ conceals a basic underlying problem.  It fosters the illusion that we are somehow ‘good’ because we are dressing up for God.  It is a study in pretense that is dehumanizing and constitutes a false witness to the world” (p. 149).

Because this chapter is so good, I’ll be excessively picky in responding to the “Delving Deeper” section at the end of the chapter, in which the question is asked:

“You imply that people should never be encouraged to dress up for church; however, for me, doing so serves as a reminder that we should give God the respect He deserves.  In this sense, isn’t wearing good clothes to church a positive thing?”

The answer is:  “If you feel that dressing up for church gatherings is a positive thing and you can do it unto the Lord with pure motives, then by all means do so.  But we should be careful not to judge or look down upon those who do not dress up for such gatherings” (p. 155).

I’m not sure it’s as simple as that, for two reasons:  First, the only reason we see dressing up equated with respect is because we’ve always been taught that.  It’s a traditional and cultural thing.  At the very least, that motive needs to be evaluated.  Second, if everyone in a church holds to that motivation and practice, then practically speaking it becomes the accepted norm in the church.  It would be very difficult to walk in wearing more casual attire.  And so a barrier is created between the “in people” (in costume) and the ones who don’t belong.

That’s not much of a criticism of this chapter simply because the message of the chapter is both appropriate and true.

They then move to the “[u]nscriptural clergy/laity distinction [which] has done untold harm to the body of Christ” (p. 136).  Well, I have a hard time disagreeing with this.  I believe they’re absolutely right.  The expectation is that the pastor does the work of the church, rather than the church doing the work of the church.

They go on to say that the “contemporary pastorate rivals the functional headship of Christ in His church.  It illegitimately holds the unique place of centrality and headship among God’s people, a place that is reserved for one Person—the Lord Jesus” (p. 137). Frankly, I’ve never heard of a pastor that calls himself the head of a local church in the place of Christ.  Some may have acted so.  But if someone abuses a position of leadership, it doesn’t negate the existence of healthy leadership.

Part of the problem is that “pastor” is a particular leadership gift (see Ephesians 4:11), along with apostle, prophet, evangelist, and possibly teacher (it’s difficult to tell in the original language whether “teacher” is a separate position from “pastor” or merely a two-word description of the same position).  Whatever the “gift” of the person giving leadership to a local church, they usually carry the title pastor (at least, in our tradition).  In the church I attended during my teen years, the “pastor” was not a pastor at all according to the “gift of pastor.”  He was an evangelist.  But because of our tradition he held the title “pastor.”

So what happens here is that after acknowledging that God has given us leadership in the church. Barna and Viola ascribe the desire for leadership to sin—to the Fall.  According to their view, in spite of the teaching of Scripture and the model of the early church (where leaders certainly existed), we shouldn’t have human leaders.  Because of the abuse of leadership and the creation of an inappropriate clergy/laity dichotomy, we should dismantle human leadership and rely on Christ as the head of the church.  We should all be in…house churches (where apparently human leadership doesn’t exist?).

An example of poor leadership (whether that leader be a pastor, evangelist, prophet, elder/bishop (it’s the same word in Greek), or whatever) does not require that we dismantle all leadership.  The model in Acts and the instructions of Paul in his pastoral letters (to Timothy and Titus) is that we do have leadership in the church:  godly leaders that give direction to local churches under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

This has been supremely modeled by God himself–who came as a human being, not just to the world, but to the Jews. He came as a Jew, walked like a Jew, talked like a Jew, smelled like a Jew, ate Jewish food, and wore Jewish clothes. God was, in every respect, a Jew.

I am a child of God. I am also a Canadian, in every respect, living in my culture (as is almost every person in my church). We are careful not to lose our cultural “Canadian-ness” as far as it does not come into conflict with being a child of God.

The “language of the culture” is not just words (replacing “you” for “thee” and “going all in” for “submission” and even “trust” for “faith” (a word which has been perverted by our culture; a perversion which has been accepted and adopted by the North American church)). The “language of the culture” is also dress, musical style, ways of eating, etc.

The real problem is a problem of translation. The church began in first century Israel–complete with its Jewish culture. It has since been “translated through” Greek culture. medieval European culture, renaissance European culture, and industrial European culture. There is an insistence on some of those “translations” that is inappropriate and, because we have “grown up in it,” we have taken it for granted as it is part of our “church culture.”

Being culturally relevant is the attempt to propagate the Gospel completely and unadulterated by the “other cultural translations” so as to “be the Church” in an understandable way in our culture. Easy to say–extremely difficult to do.

Ironically, I believe that churches like us can be misunderstood by other Christians who are clinging with an iron grip to cultural trappings of, not so much first century Jewish culture (something we have lost and must study to re-understand), but medieval, renaissance, and industrial European culture, along with our North American post-war nationalistic, consumeristic, and individualistic culture which has, in the meantime, also become absorbed into our “church culture.”

People cling to certain styles and songs and language as if they ARE the “only way of being the Church” when they are not–they are an obsolete and distorted expression of the Church.

The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions

I’m just finishing a book called The Meaning of Jesus:  Two Visions.  It reveals a contrast between liberal theology (represented by Marcus Borg) and conservative theology (represented by N.T. Wright).

Christianity says of God that he is both “immanent” and “transcendent.”  Transcendent means that God is “above and outside” the universe.  He is the Creator that stands apart.  Immanent means that God is also intimately involved in the world all the time.  The Creator is involved with his Creation.

Marcus Borg accuses conservative Christians of practically abandoning this idea.  He says that conservatives see God as “interventionist.”  That is to say, he leaves the world alone only to intervene in history at specific times.  The extreme version of this point of view is “Deism”–the idea that God created the universe, wound it up, and then let it go, never to interfere again.  Marcus responds to this by saying that God “is ‘right here’ as well as ‘more than right here’” (p. 62).

I think many people do buy into this.  Consider Bette Midler’s 1990 song:  “God is watching us from a distance.”

Sometimes in our attempts to define God we can lose sight of the fact that God is primarily relational.  Our experience and the experience of others is that God is not always “right here.”  To see “the sacred” as being “always here” I think we fear regressing to a medieval worldview with an angel or a demon behind every rock and tree.  Or we may experience particular times when God is close and other times when he seems distant.

I think that God is completely transcendent.  And completely immanent.  He is the Creator involved with Creation.  So why the disconnect with our experience?  Why do so many people not recognize his interaction?  I think that God honors our free will.  He will allow us to do what we want–even to our detriment.  And yet he is reaching to us repeatedly in subtle ways.  When we respond, he is quick to respond to us in ways to truly build our relationship with him.  He may not do things that would circumvent real relationship or perpetuate our own weaknesses or deceptions.  For example, if I were to attempt to bargain with God, he may not fill my bank account with a million bucks if I promise to “go to Africa as a missionary.”  Then I’m just attempting to use him to get what I want–which doesn’t further relationship.

God is always waiting for us to respond to him.  He is always wooing us into relationship with him.  He is our Creator who woos us, his Creation, and waits for our response.

Pagan Christianity points out that if you “[r]emove the sermon and you have eliminated the most important source of spiritual nourishment for countless numbers of believers (so it is thought)” (p.86).  This may truly be the case, but I don’t believe it is the way it “should be” nor do I believe that most of the people who are “preaching” on a Sunday morning desire this to be the case.  Most Sunday morning “preachers” would strive to see their listeners grow in maturity, which would require them to put their dependence on the Holy Spirit through prayer, Bible reading/study/meditation, etc., rather than on their weekly dose of spirituality through a sermon.

Viola and Barna introduce the popular defense of preaching:  that it is found throughout the Bible.  But they are right in saying that biblical preaching is nothing like what we experience in a typical church on a typical Sunday morning.  Preaching in the Bible, they say, included active participation (including common interruptions by the audience), involved extemporaneous preaching without notes (although this is a guess; there’s no way they could know that), and preaching was not regular.  Much of this is based on the synagogue in which the typical participant was a Jew very familiar with scripture.  The participants faced one another in a circle and the experience was very participatory.  Certainly, this was a cultural mechanism.

Today, for bad or for good, we live in a “post-Christian” culture—both informed by and reacting against biblical (and not so biblical) Christianity.  We certainly are not people steeped in biblical knowledge.  Some people that attend our church are hearing real biblical teaching for the first time.  They’re certainly not ready for circular interaction (especially given our culture’s penchant for a “spiritual smorgasbord,” being informed spiritually by anything and everything from the Bible to televangelists to Oprah Winfrey to Ravi Shankar, etc.).  Again, we strongly endorse a participatory environment to address biblical teaching in a home group.  Viola and Barna would say that is the only way.

Further, they say that the sermon is actually harmful to the Church.  It elevates the preacher to performer and the people to spectators (p. 97).  This is an appropriate criticism, I believe, but at the same time, there is a strong cultural equivalent in a classroom or a university lecture hall.  When a whole bunch of people knows next to nothing, how are they to learn most effectively?  For many people, it works very well to learn in this style.

Second, they say the sermon “stalemates spiritual growth” by encouraging passivity (p. 97).  Again, this could be an adequate criticism if absorption of knowledge is the only goal of the sermon rather than a response of action.  I don’t know too many pastors who would agree with the point of a sermon to educate but not motivate.

Third, they say the sermon “preserves the unbiblical clergy mentality…creat[ing] an excessive and pathological dependence on the clergy” (p. 98).  Here, I agree wholeheartedly.  There are too many Christians that would listen to a sermon rather than the Holy Spirit.

Fourth, the sermon “de-skills” Christians because “the contemporary sermon preached every week has little power to equip God’s people for spiritual service and functioning” (p. 98).  A valid criticism, if the sermon is all that churches are depending on.  But it’s not.  This is another straw-man argument.

Fifth, “today’s sermon is often impractical.  Countless preachers speak as experts on that which they have never experienced” (p. 99).  The criticism is that the sermon is a message based in abstraction rather than practical reality.  That seems to be a criticism based on no evidence.  How could they possibly know that?  Hearsay?  Personal experience (in the majority of churches in North America)?

On one hand, I wonder about the tenuous arguments against preaching.  On another, I completely agree with Viola and Barna.  The Sunday message should not be the focal point of meeting weekly.  Corporate worship should be.  And yet, it serves a valuable function in “getting the big picture across”—it’s an effective way to teach (rather than “preach”) a lot to a lot of people in a relatively short time.  Is there more?  Yes.  A small group is a great place to chew on that information, digest it, and begin to put it into practice.

This is what they have to say:

“You can scour your Bible from beginning to end, and you will never find anything that remotely resembles our order of worship…The meetings of the early church were marked by every-member functioning, spontaneity, freedom, vibrancy, and open participation (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 14:1-33 and Hebrews 10:25).  The first-century church meeting was a fluid gathering, not a static ritual.  And it was often unpredictable, unlike the contemporary church service” (p. 50).

This is the strongest example so far of guesswork presented as fact.  In terms of the quote above (including the scripture references), I would ask, how do you know? Since there is no structure mentioned, you presume that the meetings were “marked by every-member functioning, spontaneity, freedom,” etc.?  Because no structure is mentioned we can be sure that no structure existed?  Ironically, they imply that the opposite is the case today:  our services do not experience things like vibrancy and freedom.  This is a subtle but intentional way of bypassing logic to support the continued underlying presupposition, namely, that “house church is the only appropriate way of ‘doing church’.”

Over the next pages, the authors trace the roots of some structures that have existed.  The question must again be asked—if these structures are extra-biblical and cultural, are they necessarily bad?  The authors ask this question and answer it appropriately:  “It is clear that the Protestant order of worship did not originate with the Lord Jesus, the apostles, or the New Testament Scriptures This in itself does not make the order of worship misguided.  It just means it has no biblical basis” (p. 74).  I would add, neither did chairs, microphones, hors-d’ouevres, or the telephones and computers used to communicate and arrange church meetings, whether in a “church building” or a home.   They are if they directly impede the purposes of the church.  I’m not sure that case has been made—especially when the “order of service” is flexible enough to accommodate everything that the “large group meeting” intends to accomplish.

Viola and Barna say that “the Protestant order of worship represses mutual participation and the growth of the Christian community” (p. 75).  If that were true, I wonder how churches that use these “orders of service” manage to survive and even thrive?  The order of worship “strangles the headship of Christ” (p. 76).  It seems to me that guaranteeing the “headship of Christ” is not necessarily accomplished by adopting a completely democratic or openly participatory service.  It could happen; but it’s certainly not guaranteed.  In contrast, the “headship of Christ” is not necessarily diminished by having an order of service.  They say that “for many, the Sunday morning is shamefully boring” (p. 76).  I’m not sure that has anything to do with an order of service—another illogical conclusion.  Finally, “the Protestant liturgy that you quietly sit through every Sunday, year after year, actually hinders spiritual transformation…because (1) it encourages passivity, (2) it limits functioning, and (3) it implies that putting in one hour per week is the key to the victorious life” (p. 77).  In response, I say, “no, no, and no.”  I can’t imagine a pastor that would say or imply any of these three things.  It seems to me that the authors are tilting at an enormous straw man of their own creation.  Week after week, people are challenged to be active as Christians, to worship together, in many churches to be involved in a small group and in service “outside the service,” and certainly that Christianity is to be lived out every day of the week rather than during the “Sunday morning service.”

Unfortunately, I think Viola and Barna simply weaken their argument by taking it too far.  We should not be tied by a consistent formula.  My own criticism about an “order of service” it that it actually implies other things:  most notably, that corporate worship is secondary to and a warm up for the message or “sermon.”  We have addressed that at Crosslands Church by having a regular “flip service” in which the two are reversed.  We have also been very clear that “being the Church” goes far beyond the large corporate worship gathering, which happens to take place on Sunday morning (because that seems to work well for the most people, at least for now).

Police Standoff Against Protesters

The recent activities of protesters in Toronto during the G20 Summit have raised numerous issues close to the hearts of many – the economic crisis, the environment, international policy, to name just a few.  The actions of a minority of violent people and the response of the police have turned it ugly.  Some claim that these are the actions of a totalitarian state; that our very freedom is threatened.  Freedom is very important to us.  How much freedom do we want?  How much freedom can we stand?

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” were the landmark “inalienable rights” claimed in the United States’ Declaration of Independence.  This is such a ground-breaking statement that this phrase rates its own wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_liberty_and_the_pursuit_of_happiness).  Liberty (i.e., freedom) is seen as partnered with the “pursuit of happiness.”  In our culture, we see the one as dependent on the other.  Without freedom, there is no pursuit of happiness.  Without freedom, there is no happiness.  Conversely, we see any infringement on our freedom as an infringement on our ability to be happy.  The more free we are, the more likely we are to be happy.

Prolific Christian blogger, “nakedpastor,” even tests the idea that our freedom can be in contrast to our social acceptance (http://www.nakedpastor.com/archives/5500).  Social acceptance can impede our freedom (and, by implication, our ability to be happy).

Freedom vs. Acceptance

On idiot responded to this seemingly extreme concept with an extreme comment:  “Rejecting social acceptance for all-out personal freedom? I think it’s actually a good thing that people aren’t wandering around naked and taking a dump in the middle of the street, etc. (use your imagination).”  Ironically, this comment was added by someone with a distinct writing style not dissimilar from my own (use your imagination).

But the point is right.  Author Charles Taylor traces the evolution of culture and thought from the Middle Ages to our present post-modern culture in his exhaustive (and exhausting) tome, A Secular Age.  In 1010 (in contrast to 2010), it was socially acceptable to take a dump in the middle of the street.  It is exactly social acceptance that prevents us from doing so (informed, of course, by knowledge of hygiene that reinforced this social acceptance after it had already changed).  The other comments on nakedpastor’s blogpost reveal that we have obviously all been socially conditioned.  So are we truly free?  Do we reject that social conditioning for the sake of freedom?

I believe that “freedom” is meaningless without being free from something or to something.  It would be like “going.”  I’m going today.  It doesn’t mean anything unless I’m going from somewhere and/or to somewhere.  Absolute freedom doesn’t exist.  We can be free from:

Tyranny and taxes

Social constraints

Sin

Bad habits

In-laws

Etc.

We can be free to:

Be ruled by representative government

Travel

Dance

Choose university courses

Live without guilt

Etc.

This reminds me of Aristotle’s idea of telos or “goal.”  Without a telos freedom doesn’t really exist.  When people cry and struggle for “freedom,” they are usually struggling for the telos for which they want to be free.  Sometimes in our culture, we say we want freedom, but all we want it for is to do what we want.  We think that we will be happy if we can do what we want.  We think we can have the telos without the limiting activity (i.e., “non-free”) activity that our telos requires.  The freedom to pursue happiness does not guarantee happiness.

Consider the following statement by N.T. Wright in his book After You Believe:  Why Christian Character Matters:

Unless all four musicians in the quartet scrupulously obey the rules in staying in time and keeping to the right pitch, none of them will be free to make music (p. 55).

We are relational.  We were created for relationship.  And so we will only feel completely free when we are in healthy relationship.  Which means that we will never be absolutely free.  Without the necessary limiting (i.e., “non-free”) activity, like practice, co-operation, selflessness, and discipline, we could never:

Play in the World Cup final

Perform in a live rock concert

Build a power plant

Have a family

Etc.

Absolute freedom is an illusion.  A real sense of freedom arises from recognizing what we were created to be and working towards that.

The first subject that the book addresses is the church building.  The basic premise here is sound:  the church is not a building.  The church is people.  It took a few hundred years for church buildings to be built.  Christians met in homes.  Viola and Barna’s conclusion is that church buildings shouldn’t exist.  Christians should still meet in homes.

Two things are in their favour:

1)    People mistake the building for the church.  I am going “to church.”  Don’t dress/act/talk like that “in the house of God” (meaning, completely erroneously, in the “church building”).  The Bible specifically says that God doesn’t live in buildings.  This became clear in the New Testament when God’s statement about himself became a profound reality.  Every time we refer to a building as the “house of God,” we are propagating an error.

2)    A large amount of resources go into church buildings—mortgage, utilities, etc.  Furthermore, the actual structures themselves have evolved to emphasize teachings that are, in some cases, not necessarily biblical, and in other cases, directly contradictory to what the Bible teaches. Buildings were (and still are) designed to evoke specific atmosphere which, at worst, could be called a manipulation of emotions. For many years, the pulpit was elevated—not for visibility but to physically elevate the preacher to emphasize either the supremacy of the message or the supremacy of the person speaking.

Aesthetic Implications

And so Viola and Barna trace specific design features (including stained glass and steeples) to “pagan” origins.  As the previous blog post mentioned, sometimes these influences are pagan (meaning “polytheistic”).  Other times, though, the influence is cultural.  Ironically, they point out the difference between architecture inspired by Greeks (“pagan polytheists”), which emphasized democracy, and equality with architecture inspired by Babylonians and Egyptians (also “pagan polytheists”), which emphasized straining towards heaven (pp. 31-32).  It would seem that any building would be wrong.  Ironically, this directly leads to Viola’s presupposition—that “the church” only meets in homes.

How Big?

I would suggest something different:  the church, at whatever stage in history and in whatever culture, met in homes and in whatever was the largest space available.  There is every reason to believe that the first Christians, all Jews, met at the Temple (see Acts 2, which doesn’t support the traditional view of the apostles being in the “upper room”—they were probably in the Temple where any practicing Jew would celebrate Pentecost, and where their praise in different languages was audible to everyone around them).  Even when they were in the “upper room,” this was a place where 120 people could fit!  When the early church met in homes, they met in the largest home available.  It’s a rare home today that could fit 120  people today.

My contention is that a healthy “church” (i.e., group of believers) is healthy when they meet in large groups and in smaller groups.  This does seem to be the biblical model, regardless of the contentions of Viola and Barna.

Finally, the issue of overhead.  Yes, buildings cost a lot of money.  There may be other options, e.g., renting a community center (if available) for that “large gathering.”  For our church in particular, the hand of God was clearly part of the acquisition of the building we own.  Is there large overhead?  Yes.  Less than the regular rental of a community center?  It absolutely can be.  We used to rent.  We now own.  We pay a bit more to have a building seven days a week than we used to to rent one for a few hours a week.

I believe the church meets together for three purposes:  to worship, to learn, and to have relationship (including encouragement, accountability, etc.).  Viola and Barna make the point that relationship does not work well in church buildings (i.e., when everyone is sitting facing the same direction).  They’re right.  But corporate worship works better in a large setting.  They would argue against that, but we’ll deal with that when we get to it.  Learning works well for some people in a small group setting.  Others learn better in a large group setting (like the biblical group of 120).  I see the value of the small group and the large group.  Viola and Barna only see the value of the small group.

The point is that here Viola and Barna are dominated by their presupposition that church meeting in homes “is the way to do it.”  They ignore that large group meeting.  Even though it was done in the Bible, they choose to focus on their own agenda:  home church.  Cultures change.  We have homes that do not fit 120 people.  What are the other options?  A church building is one.  As long as the church building is kept in its proper place, i.e., a “building where the church meets,” there is nothing wrong with a church building.  In fact, there can be something very right about it.