Currently listening to: “This Is The End” – Relient K
Relient K made a great new album. You should listen to it if the chance comes upon you. It is called “Forget And Not Slow Down”. I am refusing to be using contractions. No reason.

My friend Ian Hales just made a great post over on the Harvest Durham website. You can read it here.

The post is the second in his series entitled “Who Needs Church?”. He’s examining the components of the local church and the necessity of it in the lives of believers. It’s actually something I’ve been dancing around doing myself for many months, so I’m thankful someone far better qualified (and far better “having his head around it”) stepped up to the plate.

Personally, the part that was most useful to me is where he mentions that Acts can’t be our model for church structure, as some are prone to demand (house church movement, anyone?). Why? Simple hermeneutics. Acts is a history book – it’s descriptive. So, just in the same way that we wouldn’t take the historical accounts of the Old Testament as prescriptive for how we should live our lives (thus becoming polygamists, as some misguided folks are… prone to demand) we can’t take the embryonic church structure in the book of Acts and use it as our primary source. I’m not suggesting for a second Acts isn’t useful and important, but basic study will reveal that Luke’s purpose in writing Acts was to relay the history of the early church in a rather condensed form. It’s descriptive – describing the events that took place, only occasionally weighing in on things. Conversely, the pastoral epistles of the New Testament are prescriptive by genre and by nature – they prescribe the correct structure for the local church in a way Acts never so much as pretends to.

All in all, I found Ian’s breakdown quite helpful. I trust you will too. Make sure to check out the first post in the series as well (heck, maybe even add the Harvest Durham blog to your feed reader, fair citizen!).

Minor note: Harvest Bible Chapel Durham is the recently announced church plant out of Harvest Bible Chapel York Region, and is planned to launch sometime in 2010.