Synopsis:

The earliest pioneers of flight imagined that they would fly with the birds when they learned to fly like the birds. So, slavishly copying the bird’s form (flapping wings), they tried to achieve the bird’s function (flight).

We all want a church that flies. What we long for is a church today that soars with the same power and effectiveness as the church of the first century. But we don’t need to build a better “flapper”—more accurate, more true to scale, more meticulously imitative of the early church model. Rather, we need to build a church for today that is sensitive to the same “aerodynamic principles” that lifted the church in the first century world, whether we end up looking like that church or not.

The church that results will not be dressed in first-century culture and attitudes. It will not meet in catacombs or adopt the worship patterns of the synagogue. It will not insist on recreating every facet of ancient church life and practice.

But maybe, just maybe, it will fly. 

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