Do you know about “The Five M’s of Church History”?   I heard this story around the mid 70’s from David Wilkerson, author of “The Cross and the Switchblade”, at a youth meeting in Newfoundland, Canada.   I’ve never forgotten “The Five M’s of Church History” because it’s so true.

The first “M” stands for “Man” (as in “Mankind”).  The creator searched high and low for a “Man” willing to listen and learn from God: someone willing to follow God’s will; someone who would persevere no matter how formidable the obstacles; someone willing to continue in obedience to God’s will, no matter the cost.   This “Man” was able to come up with some new ideas and others began to follow.

The second “M” stands for “Men”.   Once this “Man” was able to accomplish great things, other men wanted to do the same, but without having to endure the same suffering and self-discipline that helped the first “Man” to do great things.  So these “Men” began to study what this one “Man” was able to do, hoping to find a way to duplicate his/her success and establish an even larger following based on that first man’s teachings.  Some of these “Men” even experienced a measure of God’s revelation, but because of their carnal nature and a predetermined mindset based only on their particular scriptural interpretations, the revelation from God got filtered through those interpretations and any changes God intended were lost.  Another way to say it would be “the letter kills but the Spirit gives life”.

The third “M” stands for “Methods”.   After these “Men” studied what the successful “Man” was able to do they came up with their “Methods” for duplicating his/her success, without the pain of course.  Knowing that most people are more easily persuaded by emotionally supercharged religious words and by an outward show of piety and ritual, these also became part of their methods.

The fourth “M” stands for “Machinery”.  Once these “Men” developed their “Methods” they were able to convince many others that they too could be like the first “Man” who had helped so many and done so much to further the Kingdom.   Thus, those “Methods” resulted in a measure of success through duplication and this soon became part of the “Machinery” for establishing a new denomination.  The other part of the machinery was to establish rules and rituals that must be observed, with appropriate punishments for those who tried to change the denominational “Machinery” they developed.

Finally, the fifth “M” stands for “Memorial”.   You see, when you have “Men” who develop “Methods” that turns into religious “Machinery”, you’ve established an institution that soon enough ends up being a “Memorial” to what God could have done if he would have been able to find one more “Man” to do his will!

According to the World Christian Database, there are over 9,000 Christian denominations in the world today.  All of them have become an institutional memorial to what God could have done if other men would just have followed the example of that original “Man”, the man called Jesus.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 22nd, 2006 at 7:35 am and is filed under 3Circles Church Communities, be the church, church, education, history, spirit-centered revolution, spiritual principles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.