What Is an Organic Church?

2/22/2017

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.

2 Comments

laverta kirkpatrick

2/22/2017 08:18:21 pm

Have you read this book? I head the author interviewed recently, and thought I might like to read his book. I think it might be usful to this discussion. But since I haven't read the book, I am not sure.

laverta Kirkpatrick

2/22/2017 08:21:50 pm

"In our quest to renew the church, Christians have walked through seeker-friendly, emergent, missional, and other movements to develop new expressions of the body of Christ. Now in the post-Christian world in North America we're asking the question again: Is there a way to be the church that engages the world, not by judgment nor accommodation but by becoming the good news in our culture? In Faithful Presence, noted pastor and scholar David Fitch offers a new vision for the witness of the church in the world. He argues that we have lost the intent and practice of the sacramental ways of the historic church, and he recovers seven disciplines that have been with us since the birth of the church. Through numerous examples and stories, he demonstrates how these revolutionary disciplines can help the church take shape in and among our neighborhoods, transform our way of life in the world, and advance the kingdom. This book will help you re-envision church, what you do in the name of church, and the way you lead a church. It recovers a future for the church that takes us beyond Christendom. Embrace the call to reimagine the church as the living embodiment of Christ, dwelling in and reflecting God's faithful presence to a world that desperately needs more of it."

Oops forgot to copy and send this with my first comment

What Is an Organic Church?

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