MI-343 Discovering Organic Church

What if the church has always been, first of all, a people, not a building or a service? Explore how the first churches met and what that means for church life today.

Following Organic Church, this course looks at what the New Testament calls the church, how a movement became an institution, and how the first pattern has been recovered again and again. It looks closely at the meeting itself: the New Testament's words for the gathering, what became of the sermon, the table, prayer and song, and what it is all for. Then it asks how small churches multiply, how gifts come into use, and how simple churches and older churches can live side by side.

What you will study

• The church as a people: the body of Christ, led by the Spirit
• From movement to institution, and renewal movements through history
• The gathering: the circle, not the row, and caring for one another
• The New Testament picture of the sermon, the table, prayer and song
• What a gathering is for
• Multiplication and the use of spiritual gifts
• Living side by side with institutional churches
• Five voices of the movement: Cole, Viola, Simson, Hirsch and Frost

Course materials

• Organic Church, a WWES textbook
• The Bible