I think I want to chime in again... if that's OK. (I guess that is why we have the delete key.) (SEE BLOG BELOW)
I think often about the church and her future; I can get pretty worked up if the truth be known!
Let me build on a few of broad principles:
1. God, by His very nature (Trinity), is relational (community).
2. That makes you and me - created in the essential image of God - relational, too.
3. (Therefore) Church - whatever else we make of it - is and must be relational.
4. Sin, like drift, provokes in us what I might broadly term anti-relationship.
5. The future of the church lies in her ability to re-capture COMMUNITY.
Eugene Peterson in A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, in his chapter on Community, says, "Another way to avoid community is to turn the church into an institution" (pg. 179).
This is true; in fact, you and I above the age of, say, 30, know very little about church that is not institutional. Therefore, as we try to come together post-Twentieth Century and post-Christian Era, we are entirely likely to build the church AS WE HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN IT. Getting out of a rut takes lots and lots of strength, courage and perseverance! Otherwise, we'll end up with just another version of the institutional church.
I do not want to harangue on about what I think we oughta do at this point. I do want to make points, if you will, what I see will characterize the church successful.
1. We need to take our lessons from … Jesus.
I think often about the church and her future; I can get pretty worked up if the truth be known!
Let me build on a few of broad principles:
1. God, by His very nature (Trinity), is relational (community).
2. That makes you and me - created in the essential image of God - relational, too.
3. (Therefore) Church - whatever else we make of it - is and must be relational.
4. Sin, like drift, provokes in us what I might broadly term anti-relationship.
5. The future of the church lies in her ability to re-capture COMMUNITY.
Eugene Peterson in A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, in his chapter on Community, says, "Another way to avoid community is to turn the church into an institution" (pg. 179).
This is true; in fact, you and I above the age of, say, 30, know very little about church that is not institutional. Therefore, as we try to come together post-Twentieth Century and post-Christian Era, we are entirely likely to build the church AS WE HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN IT. Getting out of a rut takes lots and lots of strength, courage and perseverance! Otherwise, we'll end up with just another version of the institutional church.
I do not want to harangue on about what I think we oughta do at this point. I do want to make points, if you will, what I see will characterize the church successful.
1. We need to take our lessons from … Jesus.
2. He reached the point of total surrender to His Father. He said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (Jn 4:34). Those church-ers will be successful if they look, smell, and taste like Jesus because they have become so intimate with Him and His will. That is the first endeavor.
3. Jesus had three intimate relationships (Peter, James and John), nine in His Sunday School class, and seventy that He taught. His teaching was almost exclusively life-on-life. Jesus simply said to His friends, “Follow Me.” “Come live life with me.” Jesus was intentional and strategic about His relationships. Jesus knew He was worth knowing and being with. Successful church-ers will strategize their lives similarly.
4. Jesus was not hindered by church. Church was a normal part of his weekly life, but His ministry was not hampered because He had to park camels for early worship (what the institutional church calls “service ministry”). I do think Jesus served in the nursery as needed. Servants at heart do that kind of thing!
5. Jesus taught by example. Nowadays we call it “training.” Church-ers will not enlist; they will train, and train by example. Apprenticeship comes to mind at this point.
6. We must presuppose, as Jesus did, that people are ignorant and must be shown how to do relationships. Jesus did not conduct “sign-ups.”
7. Church-ers who get clued into this be-with-Jesus thing (not that complicated, I might add) will do anything and everything possible to obtain holiness. Look no further than Jesus: Jesus disciplined Himself for godliness (Mk 1:35, et. al.). Jesus practiced disciplines the institutional church is downright hostile toward! Like stillness, rest, prayer, and solitude.
8. Church-ers who desire success for the church understand incarnation. We are little Jesuses. That makes us worth knowing. It is good for those who do not know Jesus to be with us! Church-ers will spend a lot of energy simply doing relationships.
9. One caveat: Doing relationships is not the same as having a meeting. It is not the same as what we have come to know as “fellowship,” either! It is costly and dirty; mysterious, unpredictable and protracted, the fruits of which are in God’s hands!
I am not intending to take pot shots at what we know as church. However, we are in a deep rut. May we aspire toward the charge leveled against Peter and John after being arrested for healing a lame beggar by the institutional church leadership:
Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and
understood that they were uneducated and untrained men,
they were amazed, and began to
recognize them as having been with Jesus. Acts 4:13
I am not intending to take pot shots at what we know as church. However, we are in a deep rut. May we aspire toward the charge leveled against Peter and John after being arrested for healing a lame beggar by the institutional church leadership:
Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and
understood that they were uneducated and untrained men,
they were amazed, and began to
recognize them as having been with Jesus. Acts 4:13
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