Today if you want to start a church you have to go into the community and do a survey. You have to plan around the "needs" of the community. When God started the church (not a church) He started it in a prayer meeting. The people at that prayer meeting had no idea what would be the result of their prayer but they knew that God was going to do "exceedingly more than they could ask or imagine". And He did. He birthed the church.
It is time for us to return to God's model and save our money by not buying all those books when we have The Book and the Holy Spirit.
1 comment:
Good thoughts and comment Joe and here are a few reflections of my own! The church was (and is) God's idea, but it was never intended to be an 'institution', but rather a people who were devoted to Him, spirit filled, and moving at His behest - obedient, but not always knowing where He was leading! This is the exciting part of following a missional God, whose mission to the world is ongoing, and we 'the church')are invited to join Him on the journey.
Unfortunately, as we move further into post-modernism and a post-Christian era, we have an inbuilt tendency to become institutionalized, and 'retreat' into the 'fort', and pull up the drawbridge! While God - by His Spirit - will insulate us from the world, we must avoid becoming isolationist (John 17: 13-18), and whilst we are called to be 'ministers' to the body (each other) we are also called to be 'missionaries' to the world (Romans 10:14). As such, we need to be willing to reach people where they are at, understanding their culture/lifestyle in order to be able to have meaningful contact and be able to represent Christ in a manner which honor's Him, and in which He gets the glory. Jesus had 132 contacts with people in the gospels. Six were in the Temple, four in the synagogues. All the others were out in life situations.
These are the risks of faith, and while we should strive today to do what Jesus did ... although the content (the gospel) will remain unchanged ... the 'vehicle' in which it is delivered will look different. Throughout the centuries, the church has always been about the ebb and flow of God's spirit within people - the 'come and see' counterbalanced with the 'go and tell'. Including myself, I believe we major too much in the former, and short sell the gospel with a neglect of the latter.
Gord
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