The leading cause of death among organic churches is koinonitis. I owe some of the language in this section to John Butler and Peter Wagner. Koinonitis is a spin-off from the Greek word koinonia, which means fellowship.
Speaking of the church in Jerusalem, Luke reports, “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship [koinonia], in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” Acts 2:42, NKJV. Koinonia is the corporate experience of God Himself. It’s the sharing of His common life. The shared life of the Spirit.
You cannot experience koinonia by yourself. As an individual, it’s out of reach. Koinonia can only be experienced with other believers. The Holy Spirit, therefore, is primarily a shared experience. We often think of the Holy Spirit as a Person to be encountered as an individual. But in the New Testament, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is virtually always given in the context of a shared-life community where other believers are actively involved.
Certainly, there are individual spiritual experiences. But the highest spiritual encounters are those that we receive with and in the Body of Christ. This is the meaning of koinonia.
All of my experiences of koinonia occurred outside of church services. This is because koinonia takes place among a shared-life community. Koinonia, however, can devolve into something quite pathological and poisonous. It can become koinonitis.
Koinonitis is the unhealthy overemphasis of spiritual fellowship that turns a church into an insular, ingrown, self-absorbed community.Koinonitis is too much of a good thing. It’s “fellowship inflammation.”
Like blood pressure, koinonitis is a symptomless disease. The church is typically unaware of it until it suffers a stroke. Outsiders, however, can spot it immediately. Here are the characteristics of this disease:
* The church becomes little more than a Christian ghetto. It has unwittingly built an impenetrable wall of protection around itself. Relationships get deified to the point where the members don’t feel comfortable having any one else included who differ in mindset, beliefs, or jargon.
* Even though the church desires to grow, in reality, it has an “us-four-and-no-more” mentality. The group has devolved into an ingrown toenail—an exclusive huddle of navel-gazers who are shortsighted by the view of their own bellies.
* The church exists solely for itself and its members. It may claim that it exists for the Lord, but the reality is that it has become a self-enclosed universe. (This universe may also include other churches who are part of the group’s sectarian movement.)
* There is little to no numerical growth in the church over the long haul. People who visit feel awkward and out of place. More people leave than stay. The church can go on for years with little to no growth, yet few members wince. The thought never occurs to them that they may have something to do with the low volume.
* A sense of cliquishness is noticeable by those on the outside. Visitors feel welcome to attend the meetings, but they don’t feel wanted. The church views them as intruders that may fracture the group’s warmhearted fellowship.
* The church has absolutely no impact on the surrounding culture. Because the members are so absorbed with one another, they never reach outside their four walls. They have little to no concern for the lost. They have no cultural impact at all. They are neither salt nor light to their community.
* The church operates on an “out-of-sight-out-of-mind” basis. People who leave the group or relocate are erased from the church’s memory banks.
* The church is monumentally disinterested in what the Lord is doing in other churches and in other Christians outside their circle. This disinterest becomes evident to visitors. They are more interested in telling visitors what they’re about rather than learning what God is doing in the visitor’s life. The members of the church project the attitude that they can’t learn anything from those outside their pale.
What is the cure for this epidemic? I know of none except a mirror. Only a mirror. Koinonitis is like acne. You can’t see it unless someone can manage to show you your own reflection.
Koinonitis is highly contagious. It’s an STD—a spiritually transmitted disease. Consequently, if you remain part of a church that suffers from it, you will become sectarian yourself.
Remember the Lord’s word to the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3? He essentially said, “You say that you are rich. You say that you have need of nothing. But you don’t realize that you are poor, blind, and naked.” Revelation 3:17.
In John 15, Jesus likens Himself and the church as a vine tree. If you look at any vine, the branches extend outward as the tree grows. So long as the tree is growing outwardly, it will live and continue to grow. But if it grows inwardly, it will die. Jesus Christ is the Vine, and we are the branches. His nature is to grow outwardly.
Christ is also a River. A physical river that flows into itself will grow stagnant, and the water will become polluted. A river must flow outside of itself to remain fresh. Christ is a River that flows outward.
When a church suffers from koinonitis, it becomes a vine that grows inward and a river that flows into itself. For that reason, the prognosis of koinonitis is living death Revelation 3:1. Slowly but surely, koinonitis will choke the spiritual life out of the church until it finds itself in the death throes of disintegration.
Like any fatal disease, early prevention of koinonitis is essential. Interestingly, both the prevention and the treatment for koinonitis is the same: A blood transfusion.
The chief passion of our Lord is to have a Bride who loves Him, a Body that expresses Him, a House that satisfies Him, and a Family that enjoys Him. But where does He obtain His Bride, His Body, His House, and His Family?
From the world.
Christ has a heart for this world. His Kingdom has come to this world. God so loved the world, and He still so loves it.
After we’ve become Christians for any length of time, it’s easy to forget that we were once in the world and that we found the Lord through someone else.
When Paul planted a few churches in the major cities of a province, he considered the entire province to be evangelized. Romans 16:18-27. How can this be? It’s because Paul’s strategy was to plant churches in strategic centers and to expect those churches to naturally evangelize their surrounding districts. Indeed, Paul had built into the foundation of the church God’s heart for the world.
I’m no fan of modern forms of evangelism. In my experience, most are duty-based, guilt-based, and riddled with the language of war, conquest, courtroom battle and hard-sell salesmanship. As a result, they often do more harm than good. But a church, if it has touched the heart of Christ, will seek for new ways to expose Him to the lost and make Him as attractive as He is in reality.
In the first century, people were captured by seeing the church in action. This is because they lived by an indwelling Lord and carried on His earthly ministry. They also loved one another in a way that trumped anything that the world had ever before witnessed.
Therefore, the best thing your church can do to prevent koinonitis is to explore ways of naturally developing relationships with lost people and find fresh ways of telling your story to them. Also, the gospel that is presented in action, through works of compassion, healing, love, and concern for others, is far more effective than giving people the “plan of salvation.” In the words of Francis of Assisi, “Preach the gospel always, and when necessary use words.”
As a footnote, I would add the importance of investigating practical ways that your church can make people feel not only welcomed, but wanted. Seek to identify those things that turn people off and cause them to not want to visit your church again. In that regard, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to survey those visitors who never end up returning. Ask them to honestly tell you what they didn’t like about their experience with you. Finally, expose yourself to ministries that are outward focused and have a heart for the world.