It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian

It takes a Church to Raise the Christian
by Todd Bolsnger, pastor San Clemente Presbyterian Church.
{I recommend all get this book and read it for some great insights into the church community. Here are some samples. This seems to be the implications of the NT body of believers. They were a community.]

But there is, of course, a crucial difference between a crowd and a community. That is where a num-
ber of would-be models for the 21st century Christianity get it wrong, and that is one of the key themes of
this book. For many churches, the main goal is to build a big crowd, and community is packed onto the
bargain (usually in the form of a small group), the way that medical benefits and vacation days are tacked
onto a job offer. But while crowds come and go, true and enduring Christian community is a foretaste of
heaven, the essence of the discipleship, the enduring witness to an unbelieving world, and an absolute ne-
cessity for human transformation.

Even more subtly, but importantly, there is an enduring difference between a collective of individual
Christians and the community. Many pastors and lay leaders talked the right talk — about needing to be
relational rather than programmatic — but they then get hopelessly lost in creating relational programs so
that their collective of individual Christians will have a sense of connection to each other. However, the
fundamental reality of the church as and the enduring, covenantal, irreducible, and Trinity — reflecting-
entity in and of itself is overlooked entirely. As Emil Brunner wrote a half-century ago in The Misunder-
standing of the Church, “togetherness of Christians is... not secondary or contingent: it is integral to their
life just as is there abiding in Christ."

Certainly some recent books on small groups and Christian community have rightly emphasize the
loneliness and lack of intimacy among Christians. But they have neglected the transformative power of
Christian community. Page 15.

Small groups became simply a part of an individual's personal “do-it-yourself” religion that rein-
forced “individualized faith.” The most common reason why people say they join and stay with small
Church community - A Family 2

groups in for what they receive for their own highly personalized needs and goals; small groups, encour-
age a “private and inward focused” spirituality that also “permits traditional communities to be aban-
doned.” Page 15-16.

The church is God’s incarnation today. The church is Jesus’ body on earth. The church is the temple
of the Spirit. The church is not a helpful thing for my individual spiritual journey. The church is the jour-
ney. The church is not a collection of “soul-winners” all seeking to tell unbelievers “the way” to God. The
church is the way. To be part of the church is to be part of God — to be part of God’s Communion and to
be part of God's ministry. To belong to the people of God is to enjoy relationship with God and live out
the purpose of God. The church is God's present-day word and witness to the unbelieving world. And
most importantly, the church is the only true means to be transformed into the likeness of God. Page 17.

This always flummoxed Christian leaders, whether illustrated by Paul admonishing the Corinthian
church, John Calvin fretting as he walked the streets of Geneva, or ministers in our own day lamenting
our laps in values. But the problem is especially tough today. That's because real godly change — real
sanctification — requires a people to live together in come until relationships, and were less inclined to do
that than any generation in human history. Page 22.

Christian community is not just a shared experience. It's not people who sit together in use or movie
theater are football stadium (even if they are the audience for a Christian event!). It's not polite conversa-
tion, at a potluck or a great weekend together at a Christian camp. Christian community is an ontological
irreducible organism. It is a living reality that is imbued with the Spirit of God. And most dramatically, it
is the very life of the triune God drawing people into a covenantal relationship with God and one another.
It is God's own being on earth lived in and through believers for the single end result of seeing each per-
son become like Jesus Christ. Thus, the community together is a witness for Christ. Page 25.

Historically, the way the pastor for spiritual maturity and believers was to form, care for, and mature
a distinctly Christian community. The doctrine of sanctification, that is, the spiritual growth of the believ-
er, was from the very beginning of the New Testament understood to be a natural result on the maturing
community. Indeed, in his discussion of the New Testament ethics, Richard Hays [The Moral Vision of
the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation] demonstrates that the community, not the indi-
vidual, is the “primary addressee of God’s imperatives,” in order to form a Christian community as an
“alternative order” witnessing to the life-changing presence of God. Page 31.

What Jesus gave us when he left as was the meal. Don't ever forget that the “high tea” that most of us
do once a month or so with a little tiny piece of bread and a little tiny cup is supposed to be a foretaste of
the heavenly feast of the lamb that we will celebrate for eternity. It is the most ordinary and extraordinary
all at once. In the early church, the Lord's supper was celebrated every time they took bread, every time
they took wine. They believed that every time Christians share the top and loaf with other people, we of-
fer a remembrance of the Lord and are nourished by his Spirit, demonstrating in every part of our lives
our connection to God and one another. Page 36.

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son,
in order that he might be the first born within a large family. Romans 8.29.

God's divine intention is not, as we so often declare, to say people from their sins. At least it's not the
ultimate intention. God’s purpose in election is that we'll become like Christ. And not just you and me,
but all of us, so that Christ might be the first born within a large family. The purpose of election is to have
a whole family of the human family look like our big brother (who looks like our heavenly Father). God's
intention from the beginning of time with that every human would look, in character, like Jesus.
This being the case, the divine intention for our churches is to be a community of conformity, trans-
forming all people into the image of Christ. Page 45.

Church community - A Family

The doctrine of the Trinity is ultimately a practical doctrine with radical consequences for the
Christian life.... [The very purpose all the Christian life] is to participate in the life of God
through Jesus Christ in the spirit.... The fine line is therefore also our live. The heart of the
Christian life is to be united with God, the God of Jesus cries by means of communion with
each other. The doctrine of the Trinity is ultimately therefore a teaching not about the ab-
stract nature of God, nor about God in isolation from everything other than God, but a teach-
ing about God's life with us and our life with each other. Page 60- 61. Catherine Mowry
LaCugna, God for Us: the Trinity in the Christian Life

All this now leads us to consider ourselves. If God is known only through God’s actions, then how is
God known today? There aren't many burning bushes, and Jesus died on across a long time ago. How
does God and in showing his character today? There is a sobering answer: through the church. Try acts
through his body. Page 65.

If Christ is present today as the church, and the church is God’s means of self revelation to the world,
then the church's called to live and act together in such a way as to demonstrate God's character. In other
words, if God is as God acts, then the church should act as God is. The basis of Christian life together
must be to reflect or embody the very actions and character of God. Page 66.

What is the earliest result of the very first Christian sermon? Peter preached the gospel, and in Acts
2.41-42, is this, “So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about 3000 persons
were added. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread
and the prayers.” Not much “just JC and me” there. The earliest believers trust the good news about Jesus
and join — through baptism — the fellowship of people who also trust his message.

Note also about the first “spiritual disciplines” were all communal ones. They did not race home,
have a personal quiet time, and give up smoking, but instead “devoted themselves” to “the apostles’
teaching” (shared beliefs), “fellowship” (shared relationships closed parentheses, “breaking of bread.”
(Shared meals), and “the prayers” (shared spiritual life), all expressed in a communal life together. In-
deed, the passage goes on (vv. 43-47) to demonstrate just how quickly and how completely the personal
conversion experience oriented a new converts whole communal life. Page 71.

Since God's purpose for humans beings is conformity with Christ (Romans 8.29), who is the image
of God — and that's the image of God revealed by Christ is triune communion — at spiritual formation
in Christ will necessarily be what I am terming relational-sacramental in nature. That is, because God’s
essence is loving relationship, Christian maturity and growth will always entail growth in healthy and
God reminiscent relationships. Page and 73.

Because of who we are in Christ, our life is one of deep “one another living": welcoming and one
another, creating one another, loving one another, living in harmony with one another, waiting for one
another before eating, and, most dramatically, “through love becom[ing] slaves to one another” (Galatians
5. 13). To be perichoretically* related to one another through Christ is not merely to interact, but to live
in interdependence, to “rejoice with those who rejoice, we put those two weep” (Romans 12. 15). Again,
not “together, togetherness of Christians is. Period. Not secondary or contingent: it is and turtle to their
life, just as he is there a biting in Christ.” Page 74.

* [From the internet: The concept of perichoresis helps us understand what our living union with
Christ means for us. We could define perichoresis as “mutual indwelling without loss of personal identity.”
I other words, we now exist in union with the Triune God but we do not lose our distinct personhood in the
process. ...Only the Trinity could have union without loss of personal distinction – a concept that is hard
for us to wrap our minds around. If you have union without distinction (as in many Eastern religions), you
tumble into pantheism, and we would be united to God in such a way as to be completely absorbed into
Him. There would no longer be a distinct “us” to feel and taste and experience the life of God.]

Church community - A Family

Further, when the church does gather the “royal priesthood” often relinquishes its corporate and ac-
tive participation and instead allows pastors, musicians, and other designated worship leaders to be the
proxy worshipers. This tendency to be spectators rather than participants is common in any style worship.
Whether it is the high cathedral church, whose choir and paid soloists do most of the singing, a Bible
teaching church that views worship participation as taking lengthy notes, a seeker service of “presentation
evangelism,” or a liturgical critical church with a participation is rote and perfunctory, the lack of full
heart-felt engagement keeps the church from worshiping in “spirit” if not in “truth.” Page 96.

For paid clergy and worship leaders, worship as trinitarian participation means their contribution is
measured by the extent to which worshipers are equipped to become participants. If pastors and worship
leaders take this role seriously, then the church will continuously reevaluate the accessibility and theolog-
ical veracity of worship. Page 97

We evangelicals have counted on preaching and teaching to form faith in the hearer, and on
faith to form the inner life and ordered behavior of the Christian. But, for what ever reason,
the strategy has not turned out well. The result is that we have multitudes of professing
Christians that will that well may be ready to die, but obviously are not ready to live, and can
hardly get along with themselves, much less others. Page 111 quoting Dallas Willard, Spiri-
tual Formation in Christ

Notice that the first priority for living out the new-found faith was the joint is supper club. The early
church was primarily a body of people who gathered regularly to eat, learn, love, and pray together. If the
purpose of the Bible is to perform it, then the place to perform it is in the community where God is perso-
nally and powerfully present in a life transforming way. If the Bible is a recipe, and the Bible is read most
effectively when the constitutes a meal. Page 128.

Every year a month of sermons is set-aside for teaching and preaching our vision statement that we
are a “Community for the community.” We have regular testimonies from church members in which they
tell the story of how they came to find a “place to belong in the family of God, a place to grow in Jesus
Christ, and a place to serve by the leading the power of the Holy Spirit.” Three times a year, we offer a
whole church multi-generational meal and worship service, called “Fifth Wednesday,” where we eat to-
gether and then worship at the blend of styles representing everything from the kids fun songs to praise
choruses to one of the great hymns of the faith. Page 131.

Love to be loved, must be expressed. It is impossible to claim love, while not acting in a loving way
(1 John 3.17-18). If God is love and the essence of God is a loving relationship, the very nature of God's
being is one of extending the love of God to others. In the same way, if the essence of the church is the
love of God expressed among Christians, and the very nature the church will necessarily be to extend the
love experienced in the fellowship to others.... I have never known a Christian who was growing in faith,
secure in a fellowship, profoundly aware of the grace of God, and empowered by the Spirit, who did not
want to extend himself or herself graciously to other people. Page 140.

The prayerful community that reaches into the world and the witness for Christ is one that is being
transformed to the truth of Jesus and unity with other believers in holiness for the sake of the world. Cri-
sis Center, our love for each other holds us together, we are changed and glorify or witnessed the gods
life-changing power in the world. Page 144.

There is not one place in the New Testament [Cp. Romans 12.2, 1 Thess 5.20-22, Eph 5.10-11, Phil
1.9-11, 2 Cor 13.5] where Christians “discern God's will.” That is not to say that discernment and the will
of God are not important, is just that they are often confused. Page 151.

From this, it becomes apparent that discernment is not primarily that we be side personally and right-
ly, but that we decide communally and righteously. From this we conclude that according to the pattern of
the New Testament, and discernment is a moral communal process and discipline that — which in turn
Church community - A Family


leads to building up the body of Christ (i.e., the Christian community) in holiness. Through discernment
and the holiness it produces, the prayerful community is equipped to live obediently and is transformed
more and more into a distinguishable witness to the world. Page 152.

My friends, the community is the witness. The community that pours itself out together to a needy
world, the church when it lives out its calling as the true transforming communion, is the most effective
witness to the presence of God in the world. Page 157.

As “bearers” of divine love, our primary new ministry is to proclaim and demonstrate the “great and
overflowing” love of God to everyone: first of the community of believers and then to the world. As
Jacques Ellul reminds us, to be a prayerful community is to be a witness the community. ... In the Bible,
the ministry begins with expressing the love of God to the family of believers. This is so elemental that 1
John tells us to assume that if someone does not show love to Christian brothers and sisters, then we are
safe to assume that they do not know God at all (1 John 4.7-11). Page 158.

But that shared love within the church does not simply stay in the church. We are bearers of the di-
vine love to the world as a demonstration of God's initiating love for us. “while we still were sinners” (1
John 4.10; Romans 5. 8). Our ministries through the church should incarnate that same love, especially to
those who are not part of a congregation and therefore never hear the message. Page 158.

If the church is going to produce the kind of exceptional people who provide a satisfying an attractive
example to the watching world, then our Christian faith must be more deliberately, intentionally, and
inextricably communal. Page 167-168