I am currently reading "Biblical Foundations for Small Group Ministry" by Gareth Weldon Icenogle. This IS NOT your typical "small group" how-to book. It applies to any "small group" of people meeting in the name of Christ pursuing fellowship and mission. I will be posting a few thoughts from it as I read through it:

Maybe I am slow on the curve, but this concept blew me away! Icenogle points out that after Cain kills Abel the first thing he does is build a city (Gen. 4:17). He goes on to point out that Ham begat a line of great city builders and the people in Babel were a "psuedocovenant people". They had a common purpose, but no relationship with God so rather than wait for God to come down from heaven with a covenant they decide to build.

Icnogle than says, "Broken humanity builds cities. Covenant humanity builds covenant family communities. Human sin finds expression in the building of functionally interrelated things. Covenant finds expression in the nurture of relationships, families and groups. Covenant builds community....The contercovenant movement of humanity builds structures, bricks, buildings, functions, hierarchies, pyramids, tyrannies, or anarchies, but cannot build community." Later he says, "Humanity without God will convene itself to accomplish great things. Wherever there are multitudes of human beings, if they do not hear the convening voice of God they will attend to their own convening voice and gather together to build something. "

The response to human endeavor that is void of God ("Let us build...") is God saying "Let us confuse and scatter..." Groups that gather without the presence of God are reduced to games, avoidance and denial and ultimately break up.

I don't know if Icenogle intended to critique the institutional church or not, he is a pastor of a Presbyterian church in Pennsylvania, but if he is right it has tremendous ramifications for the church today where we exalt programs over relationships and buildings over missional focus. Could it be that the institutional church is not just "another way" of doing church, but a product of our brokenness and lack of God's presence in psuedocovenant communities.

This is great quote: "Powerful human structures will eventually collapse while delicate gatherings of God's people will grow and thrive."