What Is an Organic Church?

Two weeks ago in San Antonio, I chaired the Nazarene Organic Church Task Force, an extension of the Evangelism Office for the US/Canada Region. The task force seeks to welcome and connect people being the church in new and unique ways, organically.

One of our task force members, a district superintendent, asked, "So, what exactly is an organic church? If someone asks, what can I tell them?" 

Ideally, the church is simply the church:

a group of believers that meets regularly with a designated leader for worship, discipleship and mission

(denominationally, we add, "and identifies with the Church of the Nazarene").

 
There is some fluidity between what someone thinks a church is and what expresses God's presence in our world as His gathered people which sometimes meets in homes, coffee shops, in the break room of a business, under a tree, or in a soup kitchen. The emphasis is always threefold--worship, discipleship, and mission--the presence of these functions with a designated leader to guide the work make this gathering a recognizable church.

​Here is our definition of organic church includes the previous definition as well as:

An organic church is the natural, relational expression of God’s mission of multiplying His people in the local culture.

What do you think?

We are re-tooling our website to welcome and connect organic leaders and churches across the United States and Canada: www.organicnazarene.org 

Soon we will have information about organic church workshops and a luncheon at this summer's Nazarene General Assembly in Indianapolis.