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jason evens

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1.  We ask thing of everyone, with slight differences, but how would you define "postmodern" in relationship to the emerging church?

 

Actually, I’m probably the last person in the world that should be answering this, but, I would define it as burned out… well, it kind of is, but the truth is the word “postmodern” is about as descriptive as “horse-less carriage.” All it says is what it is not and doesn’t carry with it any information of what it is. When the first automobiles were introduced in the US, there were many fatal accidents caused by people pulling up on their steering wheel when trying to stop rather than pushing down on a pedal. Words have that much power.

 

The word postmodern could have the same effect in the church. The misunderstanding of what it is just might kill many churches. It seems that in the Church the word postmodern is often times mistaken to refer to an age group, such as “Gen X.” This isn’t about the fashion, trends or music preferences of a certain group. However, it seems as though that is what many church leaders have boiled it down to. Just because you have coffee, candles, couches and the word “community” in everything you print doesn’t make you “postmodern.”

 

In my opinion, postmodern is a more accurate reference to an era or maybe a way of processing thought. The end of the modern era brought us into a new era, one that is after-modern or postmodern. While scientific accomplishments and rational thinking defined the modern era, this new era seems to be leaning in a different direction. In relationship to the church, I think we need to realize that this is just the era we now live in. People understand truth in different ways. The point is not to be “relevant” with all the cool new stuff but to be contextual. Jesus was totally irrelevant to the existing culture he was in. He was opposed to what the religious and political leaders were doing and his message of peace wasn’t what the Jewish people were looking for. They wanted a political revolt. On the other hand, Jesus was contextual. He saw that people would understand the message of the Kingdom in different ways. He told one person it was about being born again and for an! Other it was about selling all he had. He realized the message had to be but into the context of the person’s reality. The modern era put the Gospel message into a nice tiny package; a quick equation for eternity. For the way western society in general processed things at the time it may have worked… but it no longer does.

 

An accurate way to define this new era is by what Todd Hunter calls, “post-Christendom.”  I think this is true. The western version of Christianity, which has tried so hard to be relevant, no longer is. People do not live under the moral standards people did just a few decades ago. Christianity, obviously, does not have the impact on culture it once did. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.  The Church in America has been heavily influenced by the consumerism within our culture. We have turned the Church into “religious goods and services” - another Todd Hunter phrase.

 

This isn’t all bad though. The fact is that with the death of the Christian culture influence, people are growing increasingly spiritually hungry. Things like eroding family structure, the destruction of our environment, the failure of our economy, the fact that we are not as secure as we were before September 11th, all these things have left many people with a deep sense of “there must be something bigger than all of this.” We have an opportunity, as the Church, to bring faith, hope and love to a crippled era. We just need to understand that it won’t happen by being up-to-date with MTV news in your sermons, but by bringing the Gospel into the context of people’s lives, where they are at.

 

 

2.  I love the idea of being an "ever-expanding community of churches" could you unpack that a bit and share how it differs from the idea of a denomination?

 

Wow! I hadn’t even thought of a possible similarity but that’s a good thing to think through. Typically, a denomination is the centralization of a group of churches. All finances, all power flows through the denominational office.  You look at denominations and, in a creepy way, they almost resemble the mob. “You give us your money, we’ll watch your back.” I have a friend who isn’t a Christian and I was trying to explain a denomination to him. He used to live in New York and he would tell me stories of mob-run neighborhoods and how he thought it sounded incredibly similar.

 

For us, Matthew’s House is really a family of people who gather in different locations as autonomous expressions of the Body. Our connection is relational rather than organizational. When we started Matthew’s House, it was just eight people in a family room. When that grew to around 30 people, some people went and started another gathering. Then another church was birthed out of that. We all love each other and have developed relationships together, so we get together on a regular basis to see what’s going on with everyone else.

 

It’s “ever-expanding” because we believe that in order to remain healthy we must be continually touching culture and sharing the truth of Jesus with others through how we live. When this happens other people become a new extension of the Church and the Church expands. We are a “community of churches” because we live life together and take care of each other amongst the individual churches. If someone from one gathering is need of something, we put the word out and everybody pitches in what they can. We all connect outside of our gatherings as well. We eat meals at each other’s homes, go to birthday parties together, go on vacations together, serve the needy together and it really goes beyond the house churches that fall underneath the Matthew’s House title. Our community is trying to be very ecumenical and evangelical in this type of living. We’re in community with other house church networks, with people from other “traditional” churches, and unchurched people as well.

 

 

 

3.  Besides being a "house based" community, how does Matthew’s House differ from other churches in the area?

 

I think one of the major differences between us and other communities of faith in our area is how we perceive the church and it’s expressions. We don’t view church as a place, style or events. We’re not even really “house-based,” we’re people based. We see the church as God’s people. Therefore, each of us is a part of what makes up the Body of Christ, the Church.

 

This applies to what I said before. We are trying to be intentional in changing the way people think about the Church and Christianity. The Church is the individual and the global all at the same time and we often forget this.  We often rely on pastors and buildings to be the Church but we are all called to be active parts of the Body.

 

On the outside looking in, to other churches in the area, we probably look a little lazy and weird because we don’t plan much as far as events or programs and we usually “let” things happen, rather than “make” things happen. To unchurched people in the area, those that are our friends don’t see us as much of a church from what they’ve known. They just think we’re sober people who know how to party and barbeque carne asada really well.

 

 

4.  How does Matthew’s House outreach to the "non-churched" in the community?

 

By living life with them. What’s the point of making up programs and stuff if churched people don’t instinctively reach out to the hurting unchurched people they know in their everyday lives? It will still be fruitless because churched people will simply bring other churched people that are disgruntled with their current church situation.

 

We feel that it is much more important that the churched re-learn what it means to be “in the world,” with the un-churched without being “of the world.”  Why don’t we hang out in bars with people who don’t follow Jesus? Typical answer: “Because drinking is wrong and I don’t want to be a bad witness…" Order water!  I guess Jesus was a bad witness then ‘cause he hung out in all the wrong places with all the wrong people. So I guess that’s what we’re doing. Trying to re-learn what it means to love our neighbors – the people in our ordinary lives. This means spending some lengthy time with them. We all have neighbors, people we work with and go to school with. We try to pray for those people and pray that they will see Jesus through us. We also throw parties, go to concerts, whatever we would normally do… just with people who don’t know or don’t like Jesus.

 

 

 

5.  How does Matthew’s House keep all the house churches connected to each other, and (besides "the connection") is other gatherings encouraged?

 

We’re currently trying to build some online tools to help with this, but for the most part, we try to allow these relationships to develop naturally.  We throw parties, sometimes we have workshops and worship gatherings but mostly we try allowing people’s lives to intersect in a normal fashion. We don’t want this to turn into another Christian club or clique which often happens when you over-organize people’s free time.

 

We’ve been saying something lately, “one vision, and many voices.” The house churches that are a part of our family are connected in similar purpose and ideals, they all have started out of another church that’s already a part of the network.  However, the word “network” doesn’t describe us very well. It’s more of an extended family. Churches have started as people grew spiritually to the point that they were ready to start a church. I don’t see those people all the time anymore. Just like when my parents sent me out on my own, I stopped seeing them all the time. You don’t see your whole family all the time. You see them at holidays, weddings, dedications, funerals and reunions. That’s pretty much how we function.  I hadn’t seen some people from some churches in months until recently when I saw them at my brother’s wedding.

 

 

6.  How does Matthew’s House minister to the needs of the people in the community?

 

Since we don’t have any facilities or staff to pay for we have been able to free up most of our contributions to go towards taking care of people. People are finally starting to take care of each other more naturally, since their finances aren’t tied up in other things. Someone needs a car part fixed but can’t afford it, that person’s house church will pitch in and take care of it. Someone is short on money for a trip they have to make we pay for the trip. Someone wants to study something deeper; we’ll buy the books. Someone has a baby or gets sick and people get together, take care of meals and mow the yard. A couple of guys get up early on their days off every week and take their extra money, go buy juice, donuts and muffins and give them out to all the migrant workers looking for work. At first, we put a lot of effort into trying to be this way, but people are starting to do it more naturally.

 

People are spreading the word about it too. Several people from another local church came to us first rather than their church when they heard about a single mother that had been kicked out of her apartment and needed help.  I don’t want that to sound like it was about us though. Like I said, people are just doing this stuff, it’s a move of the Holy Spirit, not anything we’re doing right necessarily.

 

 

 

7.  What does it take to start a house church with Matthew’s House, training, education and heart - what ever it takes?

 

We require a PhD in Epistemology and a working knowledge of Old Testament Hebrew… just kidding. At first, we would just cut anyone loose that was excited about doing this. But we think many house churches crumbled fast because of that. What we have learned is that anyone can do this, but it’s helpful to be “sent out” by some elders that you are accountable to and it is important to understand your own ability to lead and your gifting. We also don’t let people do it alone. No lone rangers.

 

 

 

Any closing thoughts or suggestions for others?

 

Yeah, if I was confusing in any of this or need to be told I’m crazy or whatever you can check out my blog at http://myvalentine.blogspot.com and get in touch with me through there. You can also visit the Matthew’s House site at http://www.matthewshouse.com … Power to the people! John is cool!