Thoughts Along The Journey

The community of believers, the church, should be described first as those who have been lovingly called out by God to become part of His family, His body, and His people: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2.9-10)

Ed put it this way in his comment to my post yesterday: “When thinking of the church theologically and globally, it cannot be defined by form or size but can be defined primarily by relationship and secondarily by function.” 

Most people, however, talk about church primarily (or perhaps exclusively) in terms of what we do at church.

So, let’s consider this situation: A young Cambodian woman comes to Christ next week through a study which you facilitate.  How, and by what means, will you help her begin to grasp the concept that ‘church’ is first of all a community of believers, defined by their relationship to God?

Filed under: Church, Community | Leave a comment »

Get on the road for a few weeks and you can quickly see your ability to post sort of peter out.  Then again, the time away can allow you to see things from a different perspective.

A few weeks ago, I started a conversation on what we, as a World Team community, mean by “church”.  In one post, I raised this question: “How do we begin to describe what we mean by “church” so that it provides a common base for all from which to work and which allows the functions of the church to take appropriate cultural forms where the church is established?”  That question is ultimately centered on the discussion of form and function; a needed and necessary discussion.

However, while I sat listening to a presentation at one of our 2011 Area Conferences, Mark brought me back to an even more fundamental or foundational principle, that the church is the community of all those God has brought into His family, His body.  “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.  For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews of Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”  (1 Corinthians 12:12-13)

The church is first of all universal, and finds its expression in local communities.  We are part of something that is much “bigger than we think”, to borrow Patrick Johnstone’s phrase. 

So when we engage ourselves in establishing new communities of believers, we are not working in a vacuum or creating an entity that stands alone.  We participate in seeing that universal worshipping community extended, and manifested in the places where we live.

Filed under: Church, Community | 4 Comments »

This title is taken from one of Francis Schaeffer’s sermons contained in the wonderful collection: No Little People.  In that message, Schaeffer makes the following comment:

“As I see it, the Christian life must be comprised of three concentric circles, each of which must be kept in its proper place. In the outer circle must be the correct theological position, true biblical orthodoxy and the purity of the visible church.  This is first, but if that is all there is, it is just one more seedbed for spiritual pride. In the second circle must be good intellectual training and comprehension of our own generation.  But having only this leads to intellectualism and again provides a seedbed for pride.  In the inner circle must be the humble heart – the love of God, the devotional attitude toward God.  There must be the daily practice of the reality of God whom we know is there.  These three circles must be properly established, emphasized and related to each other.”

His words got me thinking about the church.  If I were to diagram what he was trying to say, I would present it this way:

The outer circle concerns the church and our theological/experiential understanding of it. The next circle in concerns our grasp of what God would have us do in His world, in other words, His vision for us.  The most inner circle concerns our total dependence upon Him, expressed through prayer & worship. 

Sketching it in this way, the diagram left me with a probing question:  We, as World Team, say that our main priority is to establish the church, the local church.  Yet, do we as a World Team community know what we mean when we say: “church”? 

That’s the conversation I would like us to begin to have over the coming days.

Filed under: Church, Community | 1 Comment »