The Church Question
From 24-7Wiki
Many people ask whether a Boiler Room is a church. This subject was discussed and debated at our annual gathering in Barcelona in 2004 and we came to a clear position.
As we have mentioned above when describing the scenario’s where Boiler Rooms can be launched, 24-7 clearly recognises that in pioneering or exceptional circumstances, these Boiler Rooms are indeed church plants. In Ibiza, our aim is to plant a church in the midst of club culture on the island. In Kansas City, in the midst of exceptional circumstances, a community was licensed to plant a Boiler Room of which a church was a thriving part. In Liverpool, as part of their mandate from the Salvation Army, a church congregation was planted and has become part of the life of the Boiler Room.
However, we also recognise that in some scenarios, often in a citywide context, it is unhelpful and incorrect to refer to a Boiler Room as a church. In Staines, West London, the Boiler Room there looks to serve a number of local congregations and be part of a process of reaching their area based on the unity and support of local congregations.
On a wider scale, this is very much dependant on your ecclesiology. The German language has two words for church: ‘kirche’ denotes the formal, State denomination while ‘gemeinde’ describes all sorts of more organic expressions of Christian community. In the last fifty years, theologians like Lesslie Newbiggin have helped refocus the church on our primary call to incarnate the gospel in missional community. We have no hesitation in describing all Boiler Rooms as missional communities. As such they may be considered churches in the sense of ‘ekklēsia’ (ek – ‘out of’, klēsis – ‘calling’), which is the predominant New Testament word for church, and simply describes a purposeful assembly of Christians. However history has complicated and occasionally confused this simple definition. 24-7 celebrates the rich ecclesiological insights of sacramental, liturgical and non-conformist traditions and works closely with various denominations. In light of this, we have to recognise that the word ‘church’ is no longer one that can be used casually and should not be applied to a missional community carelessly. To describe a Boiler Room as a church could therefore be misleading or confusing in some situations. What is more, it’s often not possible (or necessary) to clarify what various parties understand the word ‘church’ to mean.
In the light of this we continue to use the term Boiler Room all of our communities. Part of the attraction of this model is that the name can equally describe an ecumenical Christian community working with various churches to bring renewal and catalyse mission (eg. the Salvation Army Boiler Room in Wandsworth, South London) or to describe a church plant in an unevangelised context (Eg the vision of the 24-7 community living on the island of Ibiza in Spain). We have come to the conclusion that we would not add anything by generically labelling all Boiler Rooms as churches, and we do not feel that such a label is required for some of them to operate as churches if the local situation requires that.
It should also be noted that a 24-7 Boiler Room is a generic term that we would use for these communities. In their own localities many Boiler Rooms will call themselves different names, often dependant on their culture (e.g. Re:aktor in Sweden, Urban Monastery in Canada).
