“In order for us to obey Paul’s clear teaching, we must open up our meetings so that people can share their burdens, or rejoice together in God’s blessings. In many churches, if a brother comes to a meeting with a wonderful blessing from God he wants to share, he must scurry around after the meeting, in order to communicate it to five or six others before they drive home. Similarly, in most churches, if someone’s heart is breaking with sorrow, there is no place in the meeting for them to unburden their hearts and receive the prayer and ministry of the body. Why not open our meetings so that the whole church can rejoice with us in our blessings, and minister to us in our sufferings? In this way, all may be encouraged by the joyful, and minister to the sufferer.”
~ Brian Anderson, Discovering Participatory Church Meetings, Milpas Bible Fellowship
Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Don't stifle fellowship
The tendency of leadership is to stifle fellowship — which means, “to share in common” — by gravitating toward vertical rather than horizontal relationships; professor and student, teacher and disciple, pastor and parishioner.”
~ Howard Hendricks, Some things Every Church Must Do web article
~ Howard Hendricks, Some things Every Church Must Do web article
Mutual edification is the hallmark of corporate worship
Certainly it is true that mutual edification is the hallmark of corporate worship . …And edification must not be understood to be merely the cognitive reception of biblical truth through preaching. Of course, it is true that mutual edification takes place through preaching. But congregational singing, sitting together under the Word as it is read, contemplating god’s Word sung, uniting in Word-centered congregational prayer, corporately confessing our faith, and rebuke and exhortation — all these edify.
~ Kent Hughes in Worship by the Book, 141
~ Kent Hughes in Worship by the Book, 141
Thursday, November 13, 2008
God’s divine intention - community
God’s divine intention is not, as we so often declare, to save 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 or me, but all of us, so that Christ might be the firstborn 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 was 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, transforming all people into the image of Christ. I often tell my church, ‘The purpose of San Clemente Presbyterian Church is to ensure that all people who come in here alienated from God find a relationship with God, take on the very character of God, and eventually look like God.
~ Tod Bolsinger, It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian, p.45
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Why do we go to church?
The Reason for Church Fellowship
by Andy Neckar (portion of his sermon)
The real reason you are here today.
You are not here primarily to worship God, although you may think so. This may be why you come to church, but this is not the real reason God commands his Children to assemble together.
In Heb 10:24 we are told to not forsake or cease the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
The verse preceding this Scripture tells us WHY we should " go to church"
Heb 10:25 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
We are to prod, that is to urge and encourage each other to obedience to God. We are to meet primarily FOR OUR GOOD and GROWTH IN FAITH
1 Cor 11:33 Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another.
We are to have fellowship meals together. ALL believers are in the Family of God and we should treat each other as family whether we be "blood" kin or "marriage" KIN or kin "IN CHRIST"
1Thes 5:11 Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
We are to assemble for the good of each other. We are to comfort each other. This means to encourage one another and give relief to a brother in distress and have compassion on each other. ALL these things can bring comfort to the believer and we should do anything else that can cause comfort to a brother in the Lord and that includes a LONG LIST of comforting things.
We are to edify and that is to teach each other. EACH ONE of God's children has a gift or gifts of the Spirit and we should USE them. YOU know something I don't know, or perhaps YOUR understand of a scripture or of an error in God's house may be more clearer or keener than mine. SPEAK IT
We are to meet TOGETHER to teach and comfort and provoke EACH OTHER. This job does NOT fall on ONE MAN ONLY. Pay attention now. Hear what I say.
I am admonishing you now and this is what scripture tells you to do about this.
1Thes 5:12 And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you;
1Thes 5:13 And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves.
You see, I am not butting into your business. I have been called by the Lord to do the Work of the Lord. As the Father sent Jesus Christ, He, Jesus Christ sent me.
I DO expect the personal salvation testimonies from you in a few days like I asked of you last week.
In the letter to the Thessalonians Paul is speaking to the CHURCH, the whole assembly, not to JUST church leaders.
1Thes 5:14-15 Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.
1 Thes 5: verses 14-15 are some of the thing YOU are to do when you come together.
Trouble is most folks were brought up in a "traditional" church and NOT in a New Testament Church, regardless of the New Testament name on the sign out front. The church is not what you call it, it is the way it is operated that identifies it for what it REALLY is. That is what you are used to and "old habits" that is the "old way" of doing things, and that includes the assembling of yourselves together, is hard to break.
by Andy Neckar (portion of his sermon)
The real reason you are here today.
You are not here primarily to worship God, although you may think so. This may be why you come to church, but this is not the real reason God commands his Children to assemble together.
In Heb 10:24 we are told to not forsake or cease the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
The verse preceding this Scripture tells us WHY we should " go to church"
Heb 10:25 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
We are to prod, that is to urge and encourage each other to obedience to God. We are to meet primarily FOR OUR GOOD and GROWTH IN FAITH
1 Cor 11:33 Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another.
We are to have fellowship meals together. ALL believers are in the Family of God and we should treat each other as family whether we be "blood" kin or "marriage" KIN or kin "IN CHRIST"
1Thes 5:11 Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
We are to assemble for the good of each other. We are to comfort each other. This means to encourage one another and give relief to a brother in distress and have compassion on each other. ALL these things can bring comfort to the believer and we should do anything else that can cause comfort to a brother in the Lord and that includes a LONG LIST of comforting things.
We are to edify and that is to teach each other. EACH ONE of God's children has a gift or gifts of the Spirit and we should USE them. YOU know something I don't know, or perhaps YOUR understand of a scripture or of an error in God's house may be more clearer or keener than mine. SPEAK IT
We are to meet TOGETHER to teach and comfort and provoke EACH OTHER. This job does NOT fall on ONE MAN ONLY. Pay attention now. Hear what I say.
I am admonishing you now and this is what scripture tells you to do about this.
1Thes 5:12 And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you;
1Thes 5:13 And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves.
You see, I am not butting into your business. I have been called by the Lord to do the Work of the Lord. As the Father sent Jesus Christ, He, Jesus Christ sent me.
I DO expect the personal salvation testimonies from you in a few days like I asked of you last week.
In the letter to the Thessalonians Paul is speaking to the CHURCH, the whole assembly, not to JUST church leaders.
1Thes 5:14-15 Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.
1 Thes 5: verses 14-15 are some of the thing YOU are to do when you come together.
Trouble is most folks were brought up in a "traditional" church and NOT in a New Testament Church, regardless of the New Testament name on the sign out front. The church is not what you call it, it is the way it is operated that identifies it for what it REALLY is. That is what you are used to and "old habits" that is the "old way" of doing things, and that includes the assembling of yourselves together, is hard to break.
Monday, November 10, 2008
The quality of our community is the real secret
Tim Keller, Buildings for Community:
“…the quality of our community is the real secret of Christian growth. Jesus did not educate his disciples in a classroom. A classroom is just one part of your life. Classroom relationships bring students together mainly at the cognitive level. But Jesus incorporated his disciples into a community of persons who lived together, ate together, and therefore were in contact with one another’s personal, social, emotional, and spiritual lives as well. Communities are places not just for information-transfer but for modeling and growth in wisdom. Only in that setting will the gospel be worked into the fabric of our daily lives and into our hearts.”
“…the quality of our community is the real secret of Christian growth. Jesus did not educate his disciples in a classroom. A classroom is just one part of your life. Classroom relationships bring students together mainly at the cognitive level. But Jesus incorporated his disciples into a community of persons who lived together, ate together, and therefore were in contact with one another’s personal, social, emotional, and spiritual lives as well. Communities are places not just for information-transfer but for modeling and growth in wisdom. Only in that setting will the gospel be worked into the fabric of our daily lives and into our hearts.”
Importance of community
Kilian McDonnell, One In Christ:
It seems to me that the primary consequence of the resurrection and of Pentecost is not the exercise of gifts but community formation.”
It seems to me that the primary consequence of the resurrection and of Pentecost is not the exercise of gifts but community formation.”
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Barth's Four Assumptions of Christian Community
More Than Cake blog
Starting January 2009, I am going to spend every Monday exploring the works of Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968). The following insight on church community is just a teaser for the upcoming year. Now, before we get to the four assumptions, it is important to understand Barth's working definition of community--disciples united in Christ to the cause of God. Barth expresses himself this way...
This task of the disciples, however, is the meaning of the active life of the Christian community which humanly speaking is established by their testimony. This community is the assembly or people of those whom God through Jesus Christ has called with Him and for Him. They, too, are confronted by God’s work as His atoning and saving work, not directly but through Jesus Christ, not in isolation from but in conjunction with Him and therefore with one another, not for their own sake, notwithstanding the reward which they have certainly been promised and will indeed be given, but in obligation to Him and in Him to the causa Dei [cause of God]
If we seek to establish the testimony of Jesus Christ, then the church, must live a vibrant life as the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Here then, according to Barth, are the four assumptions for creating vibrant Christian community.
Assumption #1: Christian community is above culture, skin color, nationality, demographics, and humanity itself.
We assume that the Christian community or Church is a particular people, and therefore that it neither is nor can be identical with humanity or with a natural or historical segment of humanity, as, for example, a nation or the population of a certain territory or country. We assume that it always represents a distinct antithesis to humanity as naturally and historically fashioned and to all the associated groupings. We thus assume that the numerical equation of Christianity, customary since the time of Constantine, with a supposed Christian West, rests on an error which, although it has not arisen without the permissive guidance of God and therefore to some purpose and profit, is still glaring and fatal, and can only result in the self-deception of the Christian community or Church and the hampering of its service. Since its Lord is no other than the One who rules over heaven and earth, it is in fact a peculiar people, assembled and to be assembled from all nations, and existing in dispersion among all nations with its special task and service. It is constituted by the imminent kingdom of God and not by any kind of great or small historical dominion. It has not to look to even the highest interests either of humanity or of this or that greater or smaller human group, but in conflict with humanity and all human groups, and for their salvation, it must serve the particular interest which God in Jesus Christ both willed to take, and in His patience will always take, in humanity. It cannot try to be the Church of the people, but only the Church for the people. Only in this sense can it be the “national” Church.
Assumption #2: Christian community is a living entity and superior to institutions and human organizations.
We assume that by the Christian community or Church is not an establishment or institution organised along specific lines, but the living people awakened and assembled by Jesus Christ as the Lord for the fulfilment of a specific task. In obedience to its Lord this people may and must provide itself with particular institutions, rules, regulations and obligations. But these do not constitute the Christian community; they are themselves made by the Christian community. They are always, it is to be hoped, the best possible and yet changeable forms in which the Christian community is active and undertakes to perform its service. The Christian community does not live as these institutions subsist and are maintained and protected. It lives as it discharges its service to the kingdom of God in the changing, standing and falling of institutions. What it has to do must not be determined by its institutions; its institutions must be determined by what it has to do.
Application #3: Christian community is not an end, but a temporary witness to the person of Jesus Christ.
We assume that the Christian community or Church is in fact the people which has been constituted and given its commission by Jesus Christ its Lord and therefore by the coming kingdom. Its existence, therefore, is not an end in itself. Even the temporal and eternal reward which it has been promised for fulfilling its commission is something apart. It can and should look forward to this with gladness. But the meaning and purpose of its service do not consist in the receiving of it. Nor does it serve in order to satisfy its religious needs, to practise its piety, to live out its religious emotions, and thus to deepen and enrich its own life and possibly to improve or even transform world conditions. Nor does it serve in order to gain the favour of God and finally to attain to everlasting bliss. It serves because the causa Dei [cause of God] is present in Jesus Christ, and because, come what may and irrespective of the greatness or smallness of the result, it imperiously demands the service of its witness.
Assumption #4: Christian community demands that all Her members serve useful roles and that nobody sits on the sidelines of faith.
We assume that the Christian community or Church is the people which as such is unitedly and therefore in all its members summoned to this service. Two common distinctions are herewith abolished. The first is the recognition, far too readily accepted as self-evident especially in many of the Reformation confessions, that the Christian community comprises many dead as well as living members, i.e., Christians only in appearance. The truth is that not merely some or many but all members of the Christian community stand under the sad possibility that they might not be real Christians, and yet that all and not merely some or many are called from death to life and therefore to the active life of service. It is quite impossible, and we have no authority from the New Testament, to admit into the concept of the Christian community a distinction between real and unreal, useful and useless members. That all are useless but that all are used as such is said to all who are gathered into this people. Again, the distinction is also abolished between a responsible part of the community specially called to the service of the Church and a much larger non-responsible part, i.e., between “clergy” and “laity,” officebearers and ordinary Christians. The whole community and therefore all its members are specifically called to this service and are therefore responsible. All are mere “laity” in relation to their Lord, and therefore in truth, yet all are “clergy” in the same relation and therefore in truth.
Admittedly, the service is inwardly ordered, so that there are within it different callings, gifts and commissions. Nevertheless, the community is not divided by this ordering into an active part and a passive, a teaching Church and a listening, Christians who have office and those who have not. Strictly, no one has an office; all can and should and may serve; none is ever “off duty.”
Starting January 2009, I am going to spend every Monday exploring the works of Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968). The following insight on church community is just a teaser for the upcoming year. Now, before we get to the four assumptions, it is important to understand Barth's working definition of community--disciples united in Christ to the cause of God. Barth expresses himself this way...
This task of the disciples, however, is the meaning of the active life of the Christian community which humanly speaking is established by their testimony. This community is the assembly or people of those whom God through Jesus Christ has called with Him and for Him. They, too, are confronted by God’s work as His atoning and saving work, not directly but through Jesus Christ, not in isolation from but in conjunction with Him and therefore with one another, not for their own sake, notwithstanding the reward which they have certainly been promised and will indeed be given, but in obligation to Him and in Him to the causa Dei [cause of God]
If we seek to establish the testimony of Jesus Christ, then the church, must live a vibrant life as the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Here then, according to Barth, are the four assumptions for creating vibrant Christian community.
Assumption #1: Christian community is above culture, skin color, nationality, demographics, and humanity itself.
We assume that the Christian community or Church is a particular people, and therefore that it neither is nor can be identical with humanity or with a natural or historical segment of humanity, as, for example, a nation or the population of a certain territory or country. We assume that it always represents a distinct antithesis to humanity as naturally and historically fashioned and to all the associated groupings. We thus assume that the numerical equation of Christianity, customary since the time of Constantine, with a supposed Christian West, rests on an error which, although it has not arisen without the permissive guidance of God and therefore to some purpose and profit, is still glaring and fatal, and can only result in the self-deception of the Christian community or Church and the hampering of its service. Since its Lord is no other than the One who rules over heaven and earth, it is in fact a peculiar people, assembled and to be assembled from all nations, and existing in dispersion among all nations with its special task and service. It is constituted by the imminent kingdom of God and not by any kind of great or small historical dominion. It has not to look to even the highest interests either of humanity or of this or that greater or smaller human group, but in conflict with humanity and all human groups, and for their salvation, it must serve the particular interest which God in Jesus Christ both willed to take, and in His patience will always take, in humanity. It cannot try to be the Church of the people, but only the Church for the people. Only in this sense can it be the “national” Church.
Assumption #2: Christian community is a living entity and superior to institutions and human organizations.
We assume that by the Christian community or Church is not an establishment or institution organised along specific lines, but the living people awakened and assembled by Jesus Christ as the Lord for the fulfilment of a specific task. In obedience to its Lord this people may and must provide itself with particular institutions, rules, regulations and obligations. But these do not constitute the Christian community; they are themselves made by the Christian community. They are always, it is to be hoped, the best possible and yet changeable forms in which the Christian community is active and undertakes to perform its service. The Christian community does not live as these institutions subsist and are maintained and protected. It lives as it discharges its service to the kingdom of God in the changing, standing and falling of institutions. What it has to do must not be determined by its institutions; its institutions must be determined by what it has to do.
Application #3: Christian community is not an end, but a temporary witness to the person of Jesus Christ.
We assume that the Christian community or Church is in fact the people which has been constituted and given its commission by Jesus Christ its Lord and therefore by the coming kingdom. Its existence, therefore, is not an end in itself. Even the temporal and eternal reward which it has been promised for fulfilling its commission is something apart. It can and should look forward to this with gladness. But the meaning and purpose of its service do not consist in the receiving of it. Nor does it serve in order to satisfy its religious needs, to practise its piety, to live out its religious emotions, and thus to deepen and enrich its own life and possibly to improve or even transform world conditions. Nor does it serve in order to gain the favour of God and finally to attain to everlasting bliss. It serves because the causa Dei [cause of God] is present in Jesus Christ, and because, come what may and irrespective of the greatness or smallness of the result, it imperiously demands the service of its witness.
Assumption #4: Christian community demands that all Her members serve useful roles and that nobody sits on the sidelines of faith.
We assume that the Christian community or Church is the people which as such is unitedly and therefore in all its members summoned to this service. Two common distinctions are herewith abolished. The first is the recognition, far too readily accepted as self-evident especially in many of the Reformation confessions, that the Christian community comprises many dead as well as living members, i.e., Christians only in appearance. The truth is that not merely some or many but all members of the Christian community stand under the sad possibility that they might not be real Christians, and yet that all and not merely some or many are called from death to life and therefore to the active life of service. It is quite impossible, and we have no authority from the New Testament, to admit into the concept of the Christian community a distinction between real and unreal, useful and useless members. That all are useless but that all are used as such is said to all who are gathered into this people. Again, the distinction is also abolished between a responsible part of the community specially called to the service of the Church and a much larger non-responsible part, i.e., between “clergy” and “laity,” officebearers and ordinary Christians. The whole community and therefore all its members are specifically called to this service and are therefore responsible. All are mere “laity” in relation to their Lord, and therefore in truth, yet all are “clergy” in the same relation and therefore in truth.
Admittedly, the service is inwardly ordered, so that there are within it different callings, gifts and commissions. Nevertheless, the community is not divided by this ordering into an active part and a passive, a teaching Church and a listening, Christians who have office and those who have not. Strictly, no one has an office; all can and should and may serve; none is ever “off duty.”
Living in the Relational Churc
By Wayne Jacobsen
Scriptures paint a far different picture of body life than we see today. It does not envision large institutions with hired staff and cumbersome overhead. Instead it depicts a group of people who are growing together to listen to Jesus; who intentionally and freely learn to share their lives without manipulating each other. The only body life the early church understood was the care, wisdom, and encouragement that people would share together in the reality of life.
They would not have conceived of the church as people lined up in chairs. Instead they saw it as the whole body engaged in sharing special moments, helping each other on the journey and finding ways to lighten someone's load. That's why the life of the early church can be summed up in the 'one another' Scriptures laced throughout the New Testament.
This is how they saw their engagement of the Father's family. Christ-centered friendships spilled over in acts of compassion and service through the daily course of human life. The body flourished only as each person was free to grow in Christ and valued for the gifts and insights they brought to the body. It was not a group of people that needed to be managed or entertained; but a family who could mutually share in God's life. No one needed to lord over the others. No one needed to feel spiritually inferior. Instead, they looked to Jesus to meet their needs, and lived intentionally to put others' needs on par with their own.
Thus the root of the problem is not our institutions, but our own self-needs and our attempts to get other people to fill up in us what we lack in our own relationship with God. You can almost find Scriptures to underscore that mistaken notion because God clearly works through others as the extension of his own hand. But that doesn't mean that Jesus builds his body based on our self-needs. Far from it!
He builds family life only out of our relationship with him. As the Lord of Lords, the Head of the church, and the Savior of the world, all of our needs can only be dealt with in him. If they are legitimate he will meet them. If, instead, they are merely the tyrannical ravings of our flesh, he will want to set us free of them. Only when we get that straight are we ready for the kind of family life Jesus envisioned for us.
Scriptures paint a far different picture of body life than we see today. It does not envision large institutions with hired staff and cumbersome overhead. Instead it depicts a group of people who are growing together to listen to Jesus; who intentionally and freely learn to share their lives without manipulating each other. The only body life the early church understood was the care, wisdom, and encouragement that people would share together in the reality of life.
They would not have conceived of the church as people lined up in chairs. Instead they saw it as the whole body engaged in sharing special moments, helping each other on the journey and finding ways to lighten someone's load. That's why the life of the early church can be summed up in the 'one another' Scriptures laced throughout the New Testament.
This is how they saw their engagement of the Father's family. Christ-centered friendships spilled over in acts of compassion and service through the daily course of human life. The body flourished only as each person was free to grow in Christ and valued for the gifts and insights they brought to the body. It was not a group of people that needed to be managed or entertained; but a family who could mutually share in God's life. No one needed to lord over the others. No one needed to feel spiritually inferior. Instead, they looked to Jesus to meet their needs, and lived intentionally to put others' needs on par with their own.
Thus the root of the problem is not our institutions, but our own self-needs and our attempts to get other people to fill up in us what we lack in our own relationship with God. You can almost find Scriptures to underscore that mistaken notion because God clearly works through others as the extension of his own hand. But that doesn't mean that Jesus builds his body based on our self-needs. Far from it!
He builds family life only out of our relationship with him. As the Lord of Lords, the Head of the church, and the Savior of the world, all of our needs can only be dealt with in him. If they are legitimate he will meet them. If, instead, they are merely the tyrannical ravings of our flesh, he will want to set us free of them. Only when we get that straight are we ready for the kind of family life Jesus envisioned for us.
How Christ Enables the Church to Upbuild Itself in Love
By John Piper, September 17, 1995
Ephesians 4:4-16
Typical American Christians' Church Experience: Organically Flawed?
My aim this morning is to persuade you and plead with you to get into a small group relationship with other Christians to experience the fullness of supernatural church life as the New Testament pictures it.
Sometimes I wonder if the frequency and seriousness of many problems that Christians face is not owing to the fact that most Christians in America do not experience relational, interpersonal, supernatural church life the way the New Testaments describes it. Psychological problems, marriage problems, parenting problems, self-identity problems, financial problems, career problems, loneliness, addictions, phobias, weaknesses — I wonder if the epidemic of emotional and psychological woes is not the symptom of an organic flaw in the way most Christians experience corporate church life.
How Most Christians View Corporate Church Life
For most Christians corporate church life is a Sunday morning worship service and that's all. A smaller percentage add to that a class of some kind, perhaps Sunday morning or Wednesday evening in which there is very little interpersonal ministry. Now don't misunderstand me, I believe in the tremendous value of corporate worship and I believe that solid teaching times are usually crucial for depth and strength. But you simply can't read the New Testament in search of what church life is supposed to be like and come away thinking that worship services and classes are the sum total of what church was supposed to be.
The inevitable effect of treating church as worship services and classes is to make the people of God passive and too dependent on ordained experts. And could it not be that this pervasive relational passivity and dependence of millions of Christians—I mean passivity in interpersonal, spiritual ministry—rob us of some of Christ's precious remedies for a hundred problems? If God designed the church to function like a body with every member ministering in the power of the Holy Spirit to other members, in regular interpersonal relationship, then would it be surprising to find that the neglect of this regular interpersonal, spiritual ministry cripples the body in some of its functions and causes parts of the body to be weak and sick? Isn't that what you would expect?
Ephesians 4:4-16
There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN." (Now this expression, "He ascended," what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.) And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
Typical American Christians' Church Experience: Organically Flawed?
My aim this morning is to persuade you and plead with you to get into a small group relationship with other Christians to experience the fullness of supernatural church life as the New Testament pictures it.
Sometimes I wonder if the frequency and seriousness of many problems that Christians face is not owing to the fact that most Christians in America do not experience relational, interpersonal, supernatural church life the way the New Testaments describes it. Psychological problems, marriage problems, parenting problems, self-identity problems, financial problems, career problems, loneliness, addictions, phobias, weaknesses — I wonder if the epidemic of emotional and psychological woes is not the symptom of an organic flaw in the way most Christians experience corporate church life.
How Most Christians View Corporate Church Life
For most Christians corporate church life is a Sunday morning worship service and that's all. A smaller percentage add to that a class of some kind, perhaps Sunday morning or Wednesday evening in which there is very little interpersonal ministry. Now don't misunderstand me, I believe in the tremendous value of corporate worship and I believe that solid teaching times are usually crucial for depth and strength. But you simply can't read the New Testament in search of what church life is supposed to be like and come away thinking that worship services and classes are the sum total of what church was supposed to be.
The inevitable effect of treating church as worship services and classes is to make the people of God passive and too dependent on ordained experts. And could it not be that this pervasive relational passivity and dependence of millions of Christians—I mean passivity in interpersonal, spiritual ministry—rob us of some of Christ's precious remedies for a hundred problems? If God designed the church to function like a body with every member ministering in the power of the Holy Spirit to other members, in regular interpersonal relationship, then would it be surprising to find that the neglect of this regular interpersonal, spiritual ministry cripples the body in some of its functions and causes parts of the body to be weak and sick? Isn't that what you would expect?
‘One Another’ Commands of Scripture
J. Hampton Keathley III, Biblical Studies Press 1996
Foundations and Motivations
Repeatedly the New Testament exhorts us to care for one another as fellow members of the body of Christ. In fact, the Lord Jesus desires all believers to be functioning effectively as a partner/members of His body, the church. Paul has an important word for us on this very important matter in Ephesians 4:15-16:
This One Another care is to be an outworking of our fellowship with other believers, but we seem to have lost sight of what the Bible means when it speaks of fellowship. Too often when Christians think of fellowship they think in terms of what goes on in that room in the church called “fellowship hall.” Since fellowship is a very important part of caring for one another this study will begin by answering the question—what is meant by fellowship in the New Testament?
And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42, emphasis mine).
A study of two word groups used for fellowship in the Greek New Testament, koinos (koinov), koinonia (koinwnia), koinonos (koinwov), etc., and metochos (metocov), metoche (metoch), express four related and essential elements that describe what fellowship involves: relationship, partnership, companionship, and stewardship. The meaning of these two word groups can be boiled down to two main ideas:
(1) “To share together, take part together” in the sense of participation and partnership, and
(2) “To share with” in the sense of giving to or receiving from others, sharing what we have with one another.
Since fellowship is so important and forms an essential foundation for understanding the ministry we are to have with one another, let’s look at these four main concepts of New Testament fellowship.
In the New Testament what is shared in common is shared first of all because of a common relationship that all Christians share together in Christ. Koinonia (koinwnia) was an important word to both John and Paul, but it was never used in merely a secular sense. It always had a spiritual orientation, a spiritual base, and a spiritual purpose.
The idea of an earthly fellowship founded upon just common interests, or human nature, or physical ties like in a family, or purely physical church affiliation, or merely self-centered interests that sport enthusiasts might share together was completely foreign to the Apostles.
In the New Testament, believers can have fellowship on a horizontal plane and share together because they first of all have a vertical relationship with God through His Son, the Lord Jesus, and because they can share together in Christ’s life and hold His purposes in common (cf. 1 Cor. 1:9 with vs. 10f, then see 1 John 1:3). Interestingly, the NEB translates 1 John 1:3 as, “what we have seen and heard we declare to you, so that you and we together may share in a common life, that life which we share with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.”
Principles:
(1) New Testament fellowship is first a sharing together in a common life, the life of the Savior, with other believers through relationship with God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
(2) Fellowship is, therefore, first and foremost a relationship, rather than an activity. Any activity that follows is to flow out of this relationship. Here is the common ground, the core and the heart beat of all Christian fellowship that is truly biblical.
Foundations and Motivations
Repeatedly the New Testament exhorts us to care for one another as fellow members of the body of Christ. In fact, the Lord Jesus desires all believers to be functioning effectively as a partner/members of His body, the church. Paul has an important word for us on this very important matter in Ephesians 4:15-16:
This One Another care is to be an outworking of our fellowship with other believers, but we seem to have lost sight of what the Bible means when it speaks of fellowship. Too often when Christians think of fellowship they think in terms of what goes on in that room in the church called “fellowship hall.” Since fellowship is a very important part of caring for one another this study will begin by answering the question—what is meant by fellowship in the New Testament?
And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42, emphasis mine).
A study of two word groups used for fellowship in the Greek New Testament, koinos (koinov), koinonia (koinwnia), koinonos (koinwov), etc., and metochos (metocov), metoche (metoch), express four related and essential elements that describe what fellowship involves: relationship, partnership, companionship, and stewardship. The meaning of these two word groups can be boiled down to two main ideas:
(1) “To share together, take part together” in the sense of participation and partnership, and
(2) “To share with” in the sense of giving to or receiving from others, sharing what we have with one another.
Since fellowship is so important and forms an essential foundation for understanding the ministry we are to have with one another, let’s look at these four main concepts of New Testament fellowship.
In the New Testament what is shared in common is shared first of all because of a common relationship that all Christians share together in Christ. Koinonia (koinwnia) was an important word to both John and Paul, but it was never used in merely a secular sense. It always had a spiritual orientation, a spiritual base, and a spiritual purpose.
The idea of an earthly fellowship founded upon just common interests, or human nature, or physical ties like in a family, or purely physical church affiliation, or merely self-centered interests that sport enthusiasts might share together was completely foreign to the Apostles.
In the New Testament, believers can have fellowship on a horizontal plane and share together because they first of all have a vertical relationship with God through His Son, the Lord Jesus, and because they can share together in Christ’s life and hold His purposes in common (cf. 1 Cor. 1:9 with vs. 10f, then see 1 John 1:3). Interestingly, the NEB translates 1 John 1:3 as, “what we have seen and heard we declare to you, so that you and we together may share in a common life, that life which we share with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.”
Principles:
(1) New Testament fellowship is first a sharing together in a common life, the life of the Savior, with other believers through relationship with God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
(2) Fellowship is, therefore, first and foremost a relationship, rather than an activity. Any activity that follows is to flow out of this relationship. Here is the common ground, the core and the heart beat of all Christian fellowship that is truly biblical.
Why did God creat the church?
Some quotes about the church as aq community from an author I think has some greatr insights about principles coming from the NT church:
This principle explains why God created the church. He intended it to be the ultimate community for life transformation. God designed the church to be the primary setting in which we can be equipped and challenged to encourage and help one another.
For some reason, however, we have gravitated toward building models based on tasks rather than on relationships. That's why many people today say that the church feels more like a corporation than a community. The tragedy is that men and women in need depend on various support groups outside the church because we haven't figured out what it means to be community. (p 192)
Nearly all of the terms God uses in the Bible to talk about the church are relational. Certainly the church has tasks to complete, but they all flow out of the relational model. The fact is, the New Testament couches virtually all its instruction about spiritual growth and development in relational terms.
A genuinely caring church develops only when people understand who they are and what they are called to be in Christ. Effective churches universally emphasize connected, relational ministry. (193)
God created the church to reflect his image, to be a community that both invites and embraces everyone near it. Authentic community, real family, is enormously attractive, even contagious. There's just something about it that people can't resist!
~ Glenn Wagner, Escape from Church, Inc.
At Calvary [Wagner’s church] we say that our church "exists to glorify God by bringing people into an ever‑deepening relationship with God and each other in the body of Christ." The church "is a social community, a community made up of people who are reconciled with God and one another.” It is "the creation of the Spirit. God's divine power and presence indwell the people of God. This makes the church a spiritual community as well as a human community." This is important because our fragmented world needs to see that a community of diverse persons can live in reconciled relationship with one another because they live in reconciled relationship with God.
Glenn Wagner, The church You've Always Wanted, p. 38
This principle explains why God created the church. He intended it to be the ultimate community for life transformation. God designed the church to be the primary setting in which we can be equipped and challenged to encourage and help one another.
For some reason, however, we have gravitated toward building models based on tasks rather than on relationships. That's why many people today say that the church feels more like a corporation than a community. The tragedy is that men and women in need depend on various support groups outside the church because we haven't figured out what it means to be community. (p 192)
Nearly all of the terms God uses in the Bible to talk about the church are relational. Certainly the church has tasks to complete, but they all flow out of the relational model. The fact is, the New Testament couches virtually all its instruction about spiritual growth and development in relational terms.
A genuinely caring church develops only when people understand who they are and what they are called to be in Christ. Effective churches universally emphasize connected, relational ministry. (193)
God created the church to reflect his image, to be a community that both invites and embraces everyone near it. Authentic community, real family, is enormously attractive, even contagious. There's just something about it that people can't resist!
~ Glenn Wagner, Escape from Church, Inc.
At Calvary [Wagner’s church] we say that our church "exists to glorify God by bringing people into an ever‑deepening relationship with God and each other in the body of Christ." The church "is a social community, a community made up of people who are reconciled with God and one another.” It is "the creation of the Spirit. God's divine power and presence indwell the people of God. This makes the church a spiritual community as well as a human community." This is important because our fragmented world needs to see that a community of diverse persons can live in reconciled relationship with one another because they live in reconciled relationship with God.
Glenn Wagner, The church You've Always Wanted, p. 38
Friday, November 7, 2008
God's intention for the church - community
Glen Wagner on his understanding of the church's purpose:
~ Escaspe from Chur h, Inc., p. 192
God created the church . . . to be the ultimate community for life transformation. God designed the church to be the primary setting in which we can be equipped and challenged to encourage and help one another.
For some reason, however, we have gravitated toward building models based on tasks rather than on relationships. That's why many people today say that the church feels more like a corporation than a community. The tragedy is that men and women in need depend on various support groups outside the church because we haven't figured out what it means to be community.
~ Escaspe from Chur h, Inc., p. 192
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Buildings for Community
Tim Keller, Buildings for Community:
“...the quality of our community is the real secret of Christian growth. Jesus did not educate
his disciples in a classroom. A classroom is just one part of your life. Classroom relation-
ships bring students together mainly at the cognitive level. But Jesus incorporated his disci-
ples into a community of persons who lived together, ate together, and therefore were in
contact with one another’s personal, social, emotional, and spiritual lives as well. Communi-
ties are places not just for information-transfer but for modeling and growth in wisdom. Only
in that setting will the gospel be worked into the fabric of our daily lives and into our hearts.”
“...the quality of our community is the real secret of Christian growth. Jesus did not educate
his disciples in a classroom. A classroom is just one part of your life. Classroom relation-
ships bring students together mainly at the cognitive level. But Jesus incorporated his disci-
ples into a community of persons who lived together, ate together, and therefore were in
contact with one another’s personal, social, emotional, and spiritual lives as well. Communi-
ties are places not just for information-transfer but for modeling and growth in wisdom. Only
in that setting will the gospel be worked into the fabric of our daily lives and into our hearts.”
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
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
Community - the key to evangelsm
The Key to Evangelism
The key to the world's coming to know God is our love for him and his saints, not our passion for the lost.
Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you arc my disciples, if you love one another" John 13:35). Evangelism rides on the wings of loving relationships within the church. It is out of community that we reach the larger community.
~ Glenn Wagner, The Church You've Always Wanted
The key to the world's coming to know God is our love for him and his saints, not our passion for the lost.
Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you arc my disciples, if you love one another" John 13:35). Evangelism rides on the wings of loving relationships within the church. It is out of community that we reach the larger community.
~ Glenn Wagner, The Church You've Always Wanted
Called to live in community
Called to live in community
(p. 43-4) In the church we are called to live in community, where our actions (or inaction) impact the lives of everyone else. God calls us to lay down our individual preferences, not simply for the desires of the majority, but for the will of God. He calls us to respect and submit to the spiritual authority of the leaders he has placed in the church, as well as to submit to one another in the Lord. He calls us to ...
• forgive one another
• love one another
• serve one another
• support one another
• encourage one another
• pray for one another
• be of the same mind with one another
• accept one another
• bear with one another
• greet one another
• admonish one another
None of this can be done by our power or wisdom, and it certainly cannot be accomplished by employing worldly strategies. It is only as God energizes every aspect of the life of the church that we see the wisdom of God revealed. When we allow him to be in charge, we discover what he had in mind.
Through the church — and only through the church — God reveals his manifold wisdom and the unsearchable riches of Christ. Therefore we must commit ourselves to be the church, to act as those who have entered into a new covenant of grace and thereby into a new relationship with one another. As we do, then God will reveal his plan through the church to us, to others, and even to angelic beings.
~ Glenn Wagner, The Church You've Always Wanted
(p. 43-4) In the church we are called to live in community, where our actions (or inaction) impact the lives of everyone else. God calls us to lay down our individual preferences, not simply for the desires of the majority, but for the will of God. He calls us to respect and submit to the spiritual authority of the leaders he has placed in the church, as well as to submit to one another in the Lord. He calls us to ...
• forgive one another
• love one another
• serve one another
• support one another
• encourage one another
• pray for one another
• be of the same mind with one another
• accept one another
• bear with one another
• greet one another
• admonish one another
None of this can be done by our power or wisdom, and it certainly cannot be accomplished by employing worldly strategies. It is only as God energizes every aspect of the life of the church that we see the wisdom of God revealed. When we allow him to be in charge, we discover what he had in mind.
Through the church — and only through the church — God reveals his manifold wisdom and the unsearchable riches of Christ. Therefore we must commit ourselves to be the church, to act as those who have entered into a new covenant of grace and thereby into a new relationship with one another. As we do, then God will reveal his plan through the church to us, to others, and even to angelic beings.
~ Glenn Wagner, The Church You've Always Wanted
God planned a community
God created the church to reflect his image, to be a community that both invites and embraces everyone near it. Authentic community, real family, is enormously attractive, even contagious. There's just something about it that people can't resist!
~ Glenn Wagner
~ Glenn Wagner
Heb. 10:24-25 -- Serious Interaction
Heb. 10:24-25 -- Serious Interaction
In Heb.3:6-14 and 10:24-29 we are faced with the sober reality that there is no place in the Christian profession for slothfulness. In both contexts apostasy is set forth as the alternative for those who neglect the gospel (3:1). But, also, in both places the same mutual duty is given as the God-ordained means of restraining apostasy and maintaining perseverance: “exhort one another daily...lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (3:13).... not forsaking the assembling [as a church; Greek: episunagogen]... but exhorting [one another] (10:25).” In the process of the saint’s perseverance, then, a mutual responsibility stands as the primary revealed method of abiding in Christ and His house.
I dare say that there are too many professing Christians who have never considered the importance of the ministry of other brethren in their lives. We live in a society where it is “every man for himself,” and the whole idea of mutual dependence is foreign to our thinking. In light of the Heb.3:13 and 10:25 perspective, can we not see why it is important to practice the “one another”/”each of you” ministry in our gatherings as a church?
Heb.10:25, of course, is cited as a basis for people to “come to church.”
It is probably the strongest passage on such a responsibility in the N.T. But what, according to 10:24-25, is to occur in our assembling? Where in 10:25 can you find the idea that we are to come to hear the ministry of one man? We probably assemble together, but do our services allow for the exhorting of one an other? If we are going to employ 10:25 to press the duty of assembling together, must we not also use it as a guide for what transpires in our services? In light of our practice, it appears that we use about half of the verse rightly (“assemble”), but think little about the other half (“exhort” one another).
For example, Thomas Goodwin, in discussing the “communion of saints, which the members of a church ought to have with one another,” states that, indeed, mutual care “is a constant duty, and that we ought to seek all occasions of acting it” (Works, Vol.11, p.355).
However, conceiving of the church gatherings as focusing on the minister and the sermon, and believing that “in private occasional converse, one member may not have opportunity to discourse with another once in seven years,” Goodwin suggested that a separate “fixed meeting” was necessary, where the brethren could “know one another’s cases and experiences” (Works, Vol.11, p.353). “The duty enjoined” in Heb.10:24, he says, “is a duty distinct from assembling together, which follows in the next verse [10:25]” (Works, Vol.11, p.354). Thus, while the N.T. connects mutual ministry and our gatherings as a church, we have in our practice separated them without exegetical basis. Why? Because we have structured our “corporate public worship” around the “pastor,” and thereby relegated any mutual ministry to occasional meetings, perhaps “once a month” (Colin Richards, “Fellowship,” pp.91, 96, 97).
In light of 1 Cor.12:23, 26, 31 and Heb.10:24-25, is it not time that we either acknowledge the discrepancy or justify our practice? The traditional “order of service” appears to be at odds with the “each of you” principle in the N.T. Unfortunately, it ends up focusing on one ministry, and not on the body. To graphically illustrate this, observe the elements in public worship as articulated by the Westminster Divines in 1645:
Everything in this order is done by the “pastor” and other officers, except the “singing of psalms.” This is essentially what we still practice today. Does this practice reflect a sensitivity to the glimpses of church gatherings we see in the N.T., or is it at odds with them? It seems to me that we have made normative that for which there is no Scriptural warrant (emphasis on one man’s ministry), and we have omitted that for which there is ample Scriptural support (emphasis on one another).
~ Jon Zeus
In Heb.3:6-14 and 10:24-29 we are faced with the sober reality that there is no place in the Christian profession for slothfulness. In both contexts apostasy is set forth as the alternative for those who neglect the gospel (3:1). But, also, in both places the same mutual duty is given as the God-ordained means of restraining apostasy and maintaining perseverance: “exhort one another daily...lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (3:13).... not forsaking the assembling [as a church; Greek: episunagogen]... but exhorting [one another] (10:25).” In the process of the saint’s perseverance, then, a mutual responsibility stands as the primary revealed method of abiding in Christ and His house.
I dare say that there are too many professing Christians who have never considered the importance of the ministry of other brethren in their lives. We live in a society where it is “every man for himself,” and the whole idea of mutual dependence is foreign to our thinking. In light of the Heb.3:13 and 10:25 perspective, can we not see why it is important to practice the “one another”/”each of you” ministry in our gatherings as a church?
Heb.10:25, of course, is cited as a basis for people to “come to church.”
It is probably the strongest passage on such a responsibility in the N.T. But what, according to 10:24-25, is to occur in our assembling? Where in 10:25 can you find the idea that we are to come to hear the ministry of one man? We probably assemble together, but do our services allow for the exhorting of one an other? If we are going to employ 10:25 to press the duty of assembling together, must we not also use it as a guide for what transpires in our services? In light of our practice, it appears that we use about half of the verse rightly (“assemble”), but think little about the other half (“exhort” one another).
For example, Thomas Goodwin, in discussing the “communion of saints, which the members of a church ought to have with one another,” states that, indeed, mutual care “is a constant duty, and that we ought to seek all occasions of acting it” (Works, Vol.11, p.355).
However, conceiving of the church gatherings as focusing on the minister and the sermon, and believing that “in private occasional converse, one member may not have opportunity to discourse with another once in seven years,” Goodwin suggested that a separate “fixed meeting” was necessary, where the brethren could “know one another’s cases and experiences” (Works, Vol.11, p.353). “The duty enjoined” in Heb.10:24, he says, “is a duty distinct from assembling together, which follows in the next verse [10:25]” (Works, Vol.11, p.354). Thus, while the N.T. connects mutual ministry and our gatherings as a church, we have in our practice separated them without exegetical basis. Why? Because we have structured our “corporate public worship” around the “pastor,” and thereby relegated any mutual ministry to occasional meetings, perhaps “once a month” (Colin Richards, “Fellowship,” pp.91, 96, 97).
In light of 1 Cor.12:23, 26, 31 and Heb.10:24-25, is it not time that we either acknowledge the discrepancy or justify our practice? The traditional “order of service” appears to be at odds with the “each of you” principle in the N.T. Unfortunately, it ends up focusing on one ministry, and not on the body. To graphically illustrate this, observe the elements in public worship as articulated by the Westminster Divines in 1645:
The ordinances in a single congregation are, prayer, thanksgiving, and singing of psalms, the word read, (although there follow no immediate explication of what is read) the word expounded and applied, catechizing, the sacraments administered, collection made for the poor, dismissing the people with a blessing (“The Form of Presbyterial Church Gov’t,” p.216)
Everything in this order is done by the “pastor” and other officers, except the “singing of psalms.” This is essentially what we still practice today. Does this practice reflect a sensitivity to the glimpses of church gatherings we see in the N.T., or is it at odds with them? It seems to me that we have made normative that for which there is no Scriptural warrant (emphasis on one man’s ministry), and we have omitted that for which there is ample Scriptural support (emphasis on one another).
~ Jon Zeus
1 Thess 4:18; 5:11-14--Constant Interaction
1 Thess 4:18; 5:11-14--Constant Interaction
Paul here focuses on the mutual ministry of Christians to one another. The hope all Christians possess is a doctrine by which they may “comfort one another” (4:18). In 5:11, Paul mentions that they practice, as an on-going ministry, the building up of one another: “even as you are doing.”
Again, we are forced to ask, can we meaningfully relate this vital practice to what transpires in churches today? If the brethren rarely see each other during the week, and if the structure of the services focus on the “pastor,” how can we expect this mutual ministry to come to concrete expression?
I suggest here, and will expand on it later, that the reason “one another” ministries are so stifled is precisely because our practice flows out of the conviction that edification comes about through one man’s ministry: “on this office [the “pastor”] and the discharge of it He hath laid the whole weight of the order, rule, and edification of His church” (Owen, True Nature, p.55).The “pastor” becomes the sole source of edification. Thus, according to Goodwin, even when “ordinary” brethren conversed with one another, the focal point was to be “what it was in a sermon that God blessed to them” (Works, Vol.11, p.357). But in the N.T. there is just as much emphasis, if not more, on the profitability of mutual ministry among the general priesthood. Yet this is left virtually untouched in such treatises.
Historically, the duty of mutual edification has been relegated to something which is “occasional,” while for Paul the “one another” ministry was the basic fabric of local church life. Further, this mutual ministry was apparently expressed in the church gatherings (“each of you”), but the Reformed tradition has pushed it outside of such meetings.
In vv.12-13, Paul makes a clear distinction between the saints and their leaders. Those who have been set aside by the people of God as “elders” are to be “known” and “highly esteemed.” The elders are “over them in the Lord.” While this distinction is clear enough, it does not seem to me that our conception of it is always clear. This distinction has been taken to mean that the elders do everything—admonishing, teaching, etc. But we have already seen in Rom.15:14, and can see here in 1 Thess.5:11,14, that there is a general mutual ministry that saints are to perform among themselves. The elders, in particular, are to oversee the mutual functioning of the body. The elders function in a similar fashion to a player-coach on a football team—only in the church there are several coaches, not one.
The function of pastoral leaders is to serve as ‘player-coaches’ of the congregation, by equipping the believers for their various God-appointed ministries.... a player-coach... unselfishly attempts to develop and coordinate the abilities of others while he himself fights the battle with them, shoulder-to-shoulder (Sixteen Tests, p.31).
After giving the general duty of edifying one another in v.11, Paul tells the “brethren” in v.14 that there are specific needs in the body to which they must minister. Again, Paul does not relegate this “warning/comforting/supporting” ministry to the leaders only, but makes it incumbent upon the body to have the same care for one another (1Cor.12:25).
Perhaps some would try to find in v.20, “despise not prophesyings,” a reference to the centrality of one man’s preaching. However, it must be remembered that in 1Cor.14:31 Paul stated: “you may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.”
~ Jon Zeus
Paul here focuses on the mutual ministry of Christians to one another. The hope all Christians possess is a doctrine by which they may “comfort one another” (4:18). In 5:11, Paul mentions that they practice, as an on-going ministry, the building up of one another: “even as you are doing.”
Again, we are forced to ask, can we meaningfully relate this vital practice to what transpires in churches today? If the brethren rarely see each other during the week, and if the structure of the services focus on the “pastor,” how can we expect this mutual ministry to come to concrete expression?
I suggest here, and will expand on it later, that the reason “one another” ministries are so stifled is precisely because our practice flows out of the conviction that edification comes about through one man’s ministry: “on this office [the “pastor”] and the discharge of it He hath laid the whole weight of the order, rule, and edification of His church” (Owen, True Nature, p.55).The “pastor” becomes the sole source of edification. Thus, according to Goodwin, even when “ordinary” brethren conversed with one another, the focal point was to be “what it was in a sermon that God blessed to them” (Works, Vol.11, p.357). But in the N.T. there is just as much emphasis, if not more, on the profitability of mutual ministry among the general priesthood. Yet this is left virtually untouched in such treatises.
Historically, the duty of mutual edification has been relegated to something which is “occasional,” while for Paul the “one another” ministry was the basic fabric of local church life. Further, this mutual ministry was apparently expressed in the church gatherings (“each of you”), but the Reformed tradition has pushed it outside of such meetings.
In vv.12-13, Paul makes a clear distinction between the saints and their leaders. Those who have been set aside by the people of God as “elders” are to be “known” and “highly esteemed.” The elders are “over them in the Lord.” While this distinction is clear enough, it does not seem to me that our conception of it is always clear. This distinction has been taken to mean that the elders do everything—admonishing, teaching, etc. But we have already seen in Rom.15:14, and can see here in 1 Thess.5:11,14, that there is a general mutual ministry that saints are to perform among themselves. The elders, in particular, are to oversee the mutual functioning of the body. The elders function in a similar fashion to a player-coach on a football team—only in the church there are several coaches, not one.
The function of pastoral leaders is to serve as ‘player-coaches’ of the congregation, by equipping the believers for their various God-appointed ministries.... a player-coach... unselfishly attempts to develop and coordinate the abilities of others while he himself fights the battle with them, shoulder-to-shoulder (Sixteen Tests, p.31).
After giving the general duty of edifying one another in v.11, Paul tells the “brethren” in v.14 that there are specific needs in the body to which they must minister. Again, Paul does not relegate this “warning/comforting/supporting” ministry to the leaders only, but makes it incumbent upon the body to have the same care for one another (1Cor.12:25).
Perhaps some would try to find in v.20, “despise not prophesyings,” a reference to the centrality of one man’s preaching. However, it must be remembered that in 1Cor.14:31 Paul stated: “you may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.”
~ Jon Zeus
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