Messy Church is a term that was in use some years ago to describe a church gathering where the focus was using fun and games to bring in people who would not ordinarily come to church. I am quite sure although I could be wrong about this that it originated in England. The church for the English of almost every theological and denominational persuasion is not a place for fun and games. But when many in the British bunch began to see the decline in the gathering of people for worship on the Lord’s Day, they began to look for ways to get people in. Messy Church was one alternative.
I went once to serve with some people from our church in a church in England where they were exploring this alternative. I do not know whether they went far with it or whether it had a good outcome. My take on such things is that they never work long term because the church is using “bait” to get people in the church and when they get them in they “switch” to what they would normally do when they gather which is exactly what those they “baited” do not want, so they “switch” to whatever they were doing on the Lord’s Day before they attended messy church.
Messy church in the form that I described above does no great harm except that it is not at all what the church is called to be. But messy church can be done in a way that causes great harm not only to the church but to the Kingdom of God. Paul was addressing this kind of messy church when he wrote to the church in Colossae. I have been reading through and reflecting on Colossians recently. There are verses in this letter that have been so mysterious to me for a long time, most of them in chapter two. So, I settled down in the Greek text there for a week or so to seek to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit as He helped me to see what is here. What I began to see was messy church or what a church looks like when she is either headed toward a mess or in a mess.
Paul lays down a solid foundation in 2:6. To receive Jesus Christ as Lord leads us to live under His rule. We live with gratitude to Him for HIs grace and we grow and change as we learn more and more of what it means to love Him and to obey Him. But the process of growing and changing for them then and us now is met with threats. Paul identifies three of them, each of them found within the church in Colossae.
The first threat is TRADITIONALISM, 2:8. Traditionalism happens when a church is captured by the culture and not controlled by the Spirit of God through the Word of God. The church begins to conduct herself in a way that is similar to the way the world in which she lives conducts itself. The church begins to be governed in a way that looks like the business down the street more than by what the Bible teaches which is the Truth of God. The church increasingly becomes compatible with the world around her and comfortable with that world. This is messy church which will in time if not confronted and corrected lead to a mess for the church. The second threat is LEGALISM, 2:16-17. Traditionalists can be legalists but often simply exploit them for their own gain. Legalists are those whose way of relating to God is by a certain set of rules that may or may not be biblical, but that is not their concern. Their concern is the way things are done in the church that keeps the church on course in keeping with what the church has always believed and how the church has always behaved. Issues can range all over the map, but they never change. The church is defined by what has always been done in a certain way and must always be done in a certain way or the church is not the church. What the Bible teaches is not the issue at all. That is of little or no concern to the legalist. Such thinking when combined with traditionalism creates a mess for the church. The third threat is SENSATIONALISM, 2:18. The sensationalists are not legalists or traditionalists. What they share in common with them is that their way of seeing and shaping life is driven by something extra-biblical, and for them it is the the direct leading of the Spirit. They say only what the Spirit tells them to say and they do only what the Spirit tells them to do. This is not wrong as long as the Spirit is speaking to them in and through the Bible. But for people like this, the Bible is one source for direction but not the only source. And it is certainly not the ultimate source. It is helpful to them but not essential. They go and do, they speak and act as they are in their view “directly” directed by the Spirit. Such people without being confronted create a mess in a church.
Paul spends his time and energy from Colossians 2:19-3:17 addressing this mess. He shows us what a clean church looks like and how a clean church confronts her mess. Read it. I have been for a couple of weeks now. Messy church as my British friends practiced it was basically harmless. And I pray it opened a door for some unbelievers to try the real thing. But what Paul is addressing is a mess that can in time if not confronted bring ruin to a local church It almost did in Colossae. It can anywhere these three things that Paul identifies are present and given a voice. Each of them represent a real threat to the life of the church. Together they can take down a church anywhere at any time. Those who are called to serve the church in leadership should be aware of these threats, see them for what they are and speak to them biblically with a clear and compassionate voice.