Vol. 5, No. 1 - April 2000

THE CHURCH AND THE WORK
Why the Church Doesn't Work

Sometimes there is a Scriptural principle which hides itself from you, and then, when it becomes clear to you, it serves to unravel more than one knotty problem. And it is generally the case that this Scriptural principle is ignored in the seminaries, radio and TV programs, and in the teaching of the organized church. Once such biblical principle that is absolutely necessary for the proper functioning of the biblical house church is the SEPARATION OF THE CHURCH AND THE WORK. I am indebted to Watchman Nee, who explicates this vital principle in his three-volume book entitled The Church and the Work, which would be well-worth your time to read. I intend in this issue to discuss four things: (1) Scripturally, what is a "work", (2) Scripturally, how all biblical works are SEPARATE from the church, (3) six church problems that are solved by separating the church and the work, and (4) the extremes of improper integration and improper independence of the church and the work. Scripturally, what is a work? The key Scripture is Acts 13:2 "...the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabus and Saul for the WORK to which I have called them.'" The timing of this separation, this "setting apart" of the two apostles for their work was before Paul's great missionary journeys. And the work that was referred to was the work of an apostle, which was planting, teaching, and strengthening new churches. The word "work" is synonymous with "ministry," the term of choice among present-day evangelical Christians. In this case, Paul and Barnabus' work, or ministry, was obviously separate from the church. But, are there cases when "works" were done inside the church? The answer is yes, and here is where my argument for the separation of church and work becomes problematic. Ephesians 4:11,12, and 16 plainly declares that believers are to perform works of service FOR the body of Christ. But that is not to say that the church IS a work. You may think this a distinction of no consequence. On the contrary, it is a distinction, which, if not properly grasped by your church, will likely eventuate in your church's destruction. You may think this a distinction of no consequence. On the contrary, it is a distinction, which, if not properly grasped by your church, will likely eventuate in your church's destruction. Let's look at Ephesians 4:11,12, and 16: "It was he [Jesus] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare GOD'S PEOPLE for WORKS of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up... From him [Jesus] the whole body, joined and held together by each supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part [each saint] does its WORK." First, notice who does the ministering, the "working." It's the SAINTS in the church who are doing the works, not the five-fold ministry who, on the contrary, are rather preparing the saints to do the works. Second, notice that the church is not the work. The church is that which receives the work. The people of God do works, in order to build up the church. The function of an individual believer's work is not to give the believer something to do to make him feel fulfilled, it is rather to BUILD UP THE BODY OF CHRIST. The purpose of a believer's work is NOT to build up his work: it is to build up the church. It really doesn't matter whether the worker is sent out from his church as in Acts 13:2, or whether he's working inside his church as in Eph 4:11,12,16, the works being done are separate from the church. In the case of Acts 13:2, this is obvious. In the case of Ephesians 4, it is not as obvious, but it is still clear that the works being done are separate from the church. Paul does not say in the Ephesians passage that saints build up the "work," rather he says it is the church ("the body of Christ") being built up. The works are an instrumental means for accomplishing the end, which is the perfection and maturity of the CHURCH. The practical implication of this is that the ultimate end of an evangelist's work is not to win souls, but to build up the body of Christ. And the ultimate end of a prophet's work is not to prophesy, but to build up the body of Christ. And the ultimate end of a teacher's work is not to teach, but to build up the body of Christ. However, it is quite unfortunate that today in the church there is a mentality that a Christian's life must be consumed with his work. He must nurture it. He must be consumed by it. He must be obsessed by it. But by golly, he must never, ever give thought to why God gave him the gifts necessary to do the work in the first place: to build up the church. And the worker, the whole time he idolizes his ministry, never glances at the neglected bride of Christ. And as a result, we have workers (usually professional clergy) who ask not what the worker might do for the church, but what the church might do for the worker. In fact, what happens is that the work (usually that of the professional pastor or missionary) becomes identified in the minds of believers as the church, so that when the believer helps the work, he thinks he is helping the church. But that is not true, for one simple reason: the church and the work are separate! Let me use a homely example to drive home this point. High-fashion designers deliberately use models who are not the best-looking, and they teach them never to smile. Why? Because they are interested in selling what adorns the girl, and they don't want anybody looking at the girl. Ministry-worshippers are like that, too. They take the gifts of Christ, which are given to adorn the body of Christ to make her beautiful, and then try to sell those gifts, even to the extent of making the bride of Christ ugly and unsmiling. It should be the other way around. The gifts should accentuate and complement the beauty of the bride, but when the world looks at the bride, they should see the beauty, and not even notice the bride's clothing and jewelry. The practical implication of this is that the ultimate end of an evangelist's work is not to win souls, but to build up the body of Christ. So let me make the point of this paragraph again: WORKS are separate from the CHURCH. Apostolic works go out in the world separately from the church, to minister to the world. Works done by believers within the church are also separate from the church, even as a girl's jewelry and clothing are separate from the girl, and they are designed to build up the CHURCH, not an individual believer's WORK. Let's now examine some Scriptural examples of the separation of the church and the work. We've already mentioned Acts 13:2, "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'SET APART for me Barnabus and Saul for the WORK to which I have called them'. So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them, and SENT THEM OFF." You will notice that those doing the "work" were "set apart" from the church, and then they were "sent off" from the church. Let's also look at Acts 28:30,31. "For two whole years Paul stayed their [in Rome] IN HIS OWN RENTED HOUSE and welcomed all who came to see him. Boldly and without hindrance he preached the Kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ." You will notice, that Paul, world-famous by that time, didn't even go to the local church sanctuary and give sermons at the church of Rome. He didn't do that because, one, Christian temple buildings hadn't been thought of yet, and two, sermons hadn't been invented yet either, and three, the commingling of the church and the work hadn't been thought of yet, either. Paul did his apostolic work at his apostolic headquarters, his home in this case. He never tried to go impose his vision on the church and Rome. He let the church of Rome be the church. And the church of Rome let Paul be an apostle. And incidentally, if it be objected that the reason Paul didn't go to the Roman church to minister was due to his house arrest, it should be noted that the Roman government let Paul preach "WITHOUT HINDRANCE." If Paul could minister in his own home with hindrance, what possible objection would the Roman government have in prohibiting him from ministering without hindrance in another believer's home? Besides, if you follow closely Paul's legal travails after his third journey, from Jerusalem to Rome, you will see that he has already endured numerous trials and hearings by Roman tribunals, and always was clearly found by the Romans to be innocent. The Romans knew that Paul was innocent, and were just letting the legal process run its course for the sake of form, probably while they waited for Jewish prosecutors from Jerusalem whom they knew would never show. No, Paul could have ministered at the local Roman CHURCH without hindrance from the Roman authorities, but didn't. He had his own WORK to attend to. Think about it real hard. Can you come up with one Scriptural example that an apostle directed the local affairs of a church which he visited? Even in Corinth, where Paul visited for eighteen months (Acts 18:11), and in Ephesus, where Paul visited for two years (Acts 19:10), Paul did not impose his ministry on the churches he was visiting. In fact, in the cases of Corinth and Ephesus mentioned above, there is not one Scriptural mention of any ministry in the local churches at all: most mention is made of weekend evangelistic work in the synagogues." Now let's look at some choice quotations from Watchman Nee on the subject of the separation of church and work. "Since churches are the result of the Work, they cannot possibly include it. If we are to understand the mind of God concerning his work, then we must differentiate clearly between the work and the churches. These two are quite distinct in Scripture, and we must avoid confusing them, otherwise we shall make serious mistakes, and the outworking of God's purpose will be hindered." (The Church and the Work, Vol. 2, p. 138.) And again: "There is no scriptural precedent for such work being undertaken by a church, as, for instance, hospitals, or schools, or even ... foreign missions. It is perfectly in order for one or more members of a church to run a hospital, or a school, or to be responsible for mission work, but not for any church as a whole. A church exists for the purpose of MUTUAL HELP in one place, not for the purpose of bearing the responsibility of work in different places. ...all the Work is the personal concern of INDIVIDUAL brothers called and commissioned by God, as members of the Body, and not the concern of any church as a body. The responsibility of the Work is always borne by one or more individuals." (emphasis mine) (The Church and the Work, Vol. 2, p. 141.) My friend, if you want to be happy for the rest of your church life, may I suggest you memorize, and meditate upon, the previous two Watchman Nee quotations? O, what needless pain we carry. There are so many problems that we face in churches (both institutional and home churches) that would simply evaporate if we followed the Scriptural wisdom of the separation of church and work. I'm going to mention six such problems: (1) The Parachurch Problem, (2) The Numbers Problem, (3) The Politics Problem, (4) The Mutual Ministry Problem, (5) The I'm Not the Pastor But I've Got a Dream Problem, and (6) The Unity Problem.   (1) THE PARACHURCH PROBLEM There has always been a problem in evangelical Christianity with what to do with parachurch organizations. The problem arises because the workers in the parachurch organization become so dedicated to the work they are doing they forget their "local" or "home" church, and start treating the parachurch organization as their church. This causes jealousy amongst the church pastors, so the parachurch ministry has to take great pains to point out that it is not a church, and does not intend to compete with the churches. I remember during my college days that one particularly famous campus ministry had written in its constitution that "communion" (I put the word in quotes because what they meant was a shot-glass of grape juice and soda crackers, not the Lord's Supper as a full meal) would not be served at meetings. This was to insure that no one would consider that parachurch ministry as a church, to keep pastors of churches from becoming upset. Parachurch organizations like to promise in their constitutions that they will never "ordain" anyone, for the same reason. But: a proper view of the church and the work solves the parachurch problem. The parachurch is the work. It in no way interferes with, or competes with, the work of the church. It is separate from the church. It is free to do its ministry uncommanded and uncontrolled by the church. On the other hand, the parachurch (the work) does not try to become a church. It does not try to do what churches do. It doesn't try to exercise those mutual ministries which build the body of Christ up unto the head, through stimulation to love and good works, etc., etc. The CHURCH does that. One benefit that house churchers receive from recognizing the parachurch as a work, is that we can feel free to support such ministries as WORKS, and not feel like we are compromising our biblical house CHURCH principles. Do the parachurch organization preach big numbers? Fine. We want them to have big numbers, that doesn't interfere with our beliefs in the necessity for small and intimate CHURCH fellowships. (2) THE NUMBERS PROBLEM House churchers tend to be defensive about the small size of their church. Their institutional church friends are constantly bragging about how many millions of people are attending their services, and they look at you, the poor miserable, house church misfit, who can only rustle up six people to meet in your living room, and they just ooze pity and condescension: you poor thing, you're such a loser, they seem to say. Well, you don't have to be defensive. You could have only four people in your house CHURCH, one of whom does evangelism for his WORK, and who goes out and rents football stadiums which hold 100,000 people to have an evangelistic rally. Rejoice in the big numbers that some works attain. The more the merrier. But don't go trying to bring 100,000 people into my living room! That's my CHURCH. It's not a WORK. Scripturally, it was designed to be SMALL! They look at you, the poor miserable, house church misfit, who can only rustle up six people to meet in your living room, and they just ooze pity and condescension... (3) THE POLITICS PROBLEM Have you ever had someone in your house church decide that they all of a sudden have got a social consciousness, and they want you (not you individually, but your church) to get involved in politics (or feeding the hungry, or building houses for the poor, or boycotting anti-Christian businesses, or whatever)? This inevitably creates tension, a rift between the activists and pietists. The answer is this: the CHURCH is not supposed to get involved in politics! Nor is it supposed to save the culture for Christ. Nor is it supposed to build up the Christian family. I will even go further. It is not supposed to do missions. It is not supposed to witness to the lost. WORKERS are supposed to do all that stuff. Send them out there with all that "tithe" money you used to spend on those worthless Christian temple buildings. Do the work! Transform the world! But for crying out loud, don't ask the church to do all that, because the CHURCH is not the WORK! A proper view of the church will allow Christians to participate whole hog in politics, without turning the church into a campaign stump meeting. (4) THE MUTUAL MINISTRY PROBLEM When you cut workers loose from the church, then they don't try to screw up the church, by insisting that the church ONLY be concerned about their particular work. They aren't constantly begging the church to be "missions-minded," or to become active in politics to "occupy the earth till He comes," or to go out and witness, or to do expository Bible teaching, or to have healing meetings every week, or whatever. With workers taking their work outside the church like Paul and Barnabus did in Acts 13, the church is free to be the church. It is free to perform its proper function, which is to mutually encourage the saints and to grow them up into the perfection of a full knowledge of the head of the church, Jesus Christ. No more going to Baptist churches and hearing evangelism sermons week after week. No more going to charismatic churches and doing healing meetings week after week. But rather, we go to I Corinthians 14 meetings, where "EACH" has a ministry one to another. Dreams of ministry placed in the lowly "layman" somehow never get fulfilled, because the pastor is all the time huffing and puffing trying to get everybody to "follow his vision." (5) THE I'M NOT THE PASTOR BUT I'VE GOT A DREAM PROBLEM There are millions of Christians, not called to be pastors, but who have been "created in Christ Jesus for good WORKS, which God prepared beforehand," that they should walk in them. The problem is, they can't walk in them, because the institutional church has brainwashed them into thinking that the only place they can execute their WORKS is in the CHURCH. But the problem with that is that they are led to believe that there is only one way to do a real work for God in the church, and that is by being the pastor. All of the other dreams of ministry placed in the lowly "layman" somehow never get fulfilled, because the pastor is all the time huffing and puffing trying to get everybody to "follow his vision." Altogether now, let's get behind the pastor and do a great work for God. However, because God has placed all sorts of different visions in his children, nobody really cares that much for the pastor's vision, and so they give lip service to the pastor, while meanwhile their own dreams die within them. If believers would realize that the world is their stage for their work, and there's as many works out there to do as there are believers to do them, believers would explosively transform the world. Missions, politics, the arts, evangelism, business, the helping professions, you name it, there's work to be done out there, and it's not the church's job to be doing those works. Its us, as individual Christians, as individual WORKERS, who should be doing those works. (6) THE UNITY PROBLEM If there are ten people in your house church, there will be ten different visions for the direction in which your church should go. The IC imposes order on this inevitable disunity by making the pastor's vision the direction in which the church should go. But you don't have a pastor, so what do you do? You will never, ever get everybody to agree on one direction for the church. So, if you don't decouple those ten visions for the WORK from the CHURCH, your church is going to blow sky high. It's inevitable. I promise you. I am going to list a series of possible visions a church might pursue (courtesy of Gene Edwards' Preventing a Church Split). When you finish reading them, ask yourself, is there any possible way to find unity in all this? Here they are: Emphasize the Lord's return. Miracles, healings, power, signs and wonders. Spiritual warfare. Caring for one another more. Confessing needs to one another. Authority and submission. Counseling. Missions. Helping the poor. The deeper life. Visiting the sick. Caring for the aged. Visiting prisoners. Helping orphans. Music. Living in common. Confession of sin. Prophesy. Holiness. Youth. Kids' ministries. Singles ministries. Marriage counseling. Financial counseling. Politics. Bible study. Christian education. Revival. Attacking the religious system. Loving the religious system. Etc. You know what I'm talking about, you've all been there. There is no way that folks who think like this are ever going to be in unity, unless they forget about making their WORK the focus of the CHURCH. Unless they make the church centered on Christ alone, centered on the relationship of Jesus Christ to the believer. Unless they separate the CHURCH from the WORK. A closing caveat: the separation of the CHURCH and the WORK does not mean the isolation of the CHURCH from the WORK. It can often happen that believers get excited about the work that God has given them (as well they should be), and they go to church all pumped up ready to talk about it, and nobody cares. This is wrong, because even though the WORK is not a part of the CHURCH's ministry, the WORKER is a part of the church's ministry. That worker should be edified, encouraged, prayed for, prophesied over, healed, taught, funded, and whatever else is necessary to get him out to be a little salt and light in the world. To elevate the CHURCH is not to denigrate the WORK. -By Dan Trotter

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You may send your opinions, flames, weighty observations, etc., to

Dan L. Trotter

work e-mail: dtrotter@pascal.coker.edu
home e-mail: dantrotter@yahoo.com

Since 09/30/00 this number of people have ignored the Surgeon General's warning and have read this thing, resulting in gosh knows how much mental and emotional trauma: