HoHum:
It’s popular today to meet with friends at a coffee shop and call it “church.” In some cases it is but most of the time it isn’t. It’s difficult to stand in defense of the church when there are so many examples of dysfunctional churches around us. But sometimes we need to remind people that the church is important. We were designed for community, but also something beyond mere community- we were designed for the church. Many people will object. I get it. Some parts of the North American church are desperately sick, and in many cases the church hinder the spiritual growth of Christians. but before we allow people to have coffee and croissants at Starbucks and call it church, we need to look at the church and community. the bottom line is this: Church is God’s idea, and we ignore this at our own peril. The church is not an afterthought in the mind of God.
WBTU:
For some church evokes negative images and emotions. At an extreme, we hear comments such as those by former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, “Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak minded people who need strength in numbers.” Horror writer Stephen King says this, “Organized religion gives me the creeps.”
Less extreme comments are everywhere: “I want Jesus, but not the church”, “I’m a spiritual person, I’m just not into church.” I feel sympathy for these misguided souls. To have Jesus without the church is impossible. What is church? Christians. How can we have Jesus without being member of God’s family? However, the many people who express this desire to be a Christian without the church magnifies the need for the church to authentically admit our mistakes, and to pursue what Jesus truly intends of us.
Churches, church leaders, and church members have made many mistakes over the years. We have embarrased ourselves, damaged our effectiveness, and worst of all we have disappointed God. When someone barks, “The church is full of hypocrites!” we know that this statement is far more true than we want to admit. When someone says, “Preachers are just money hungry and sex crazed”, my head drops and heart sinks because the statement is true in far too many cases. Much of this has been documented and splashed across newspapers and newscasts.
But the church at its worst is still the bride of Christ. He loves us- not just individually but as a church. John Stott said, “The reason that we are committed to the church is that God is so committed. True, we may be dissatisfied, even disillusioned, with some aspects of the church. But still we are committed to Christ and his church.” In exalting the church, we fight an uphill battle. But the battle needs to be fought.
In addition to battling the charges against the church, we also battle against the bias of an individualistic society that has for many years dismissed the need for community. This individiualization of society has crept into the church. Much of modern preaching and teaching focuses on the private aspects of faith. There are portions of our faith that are more personal than others, but making the Christian faith as nothing but private is an unbiblical model. Such a philosophy would have seemed odd to 1st century Christians and in many ways this does not appear in the Bible. This misdirected focus continues unchecked until someone raises the question, “Well then why do we need the church?”
Also the English language does not help us out in this respect. While the original biblical languages distinguish between the singular “you” and the plural “you,” the English language makes no such distinction (unless you are from the South as in y’all but I’ve never seen a southern Bible). As a result, we often read “you” as singular- about me, for me, centered on me- when the Bible intends to make a statement about us, for us, centered on the community. For example- “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6, NIV. Many sermons, lessons, and devotions have personalized this passage and led people to contemplate how God works in them individually. While this is not heresy, this “you” here is plural. This means that God began a work in the Philippian church, and He will continue that work in that church. The teaching here should lead listeners to contemplate not how God works in “me” but how God works in “us.”
Thesis: To get our feet wet, as we begin a series on the church, let’s start by talking about the biblical concept of community and then a definition of “church”
For instances:
Biblical concept of community
God aches to redeem, nourish, and empower a people, a community. From his covenant with Abraham, to the vision He gave John the apostle concerning Heaven, God’s heart for His community casts a glow across the entire Bible. The cross of Jesus that stands central in the Bible serves not only to “redeem us from all wickedness” but also to “purify for himself a people that are his very own” in words of Titus 2:14.
The community started with Abraham. Through Moses God set apart His people. Through David God led His people. Through Nehemiah God restored His people. Through Jesus God redeems His people. Through Paul God expanded His people. Through the church God nourishes His people.
One cannot read of Jesus’ relationship with His disciples without recognizing the power of community. This ragamuffin twelve talked with Jesus during their long walks from village to village, asking questions and probing the wisdom of the great I Am. They sat around the evening campfire, drinking in how Jesus conducted himself in such leisure hours. They stood beside Jesus, intrigued, while He taught the crowds. They watched while He stretched His hand to heal the leper, to comfort the grieving, and to brush back the wisp of hair from the eye of the curious child who sat on His knee. The disciples listenened, learned, and observed in community with one another and with Jesus
One cannot read of Paul’s adventures in Acts or through His epistles without recognizing the power of community in his life and ministry. Yes, Paul served as the great pioneer missionary. But he did not serve alone. Silas, Timothy, Barnabas, Luke, Mark, Priscilla and Aquila, Titus, Gaius- the list could go on and on. To Paul these names represented far more than a list. Such saints battled arm in arm with the missionary apostle, often with intense personal sacrifice, stretching the boundaries of the church until it penetrated the furthest reaches of the Mediterranean world. They united with Paul in a purpose far larger than themselves. As a community, they banded together and extended the gospel.
My own faith and ministry did not develop, nor does it continue, in isolation. When I reflect across years, numerous names come to mind of those who influenced me. From my family my father and mother, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles. From my growing up years people like John Paul Hill, Ron Blakeny, Don Pace, and Richard Clark. From my college days people like Ronnie Woolard, Melvin Styons, Bill Griffin- I could continue listing names for a long time. Yet, these names are much more than a list. Each individual, every face and memory that rolls through my mind, comprise the community of saints who have loved and nurtured me, and who have given me the privilege of ministering alongside of them.
Much preaching on how healthy Christians produce a healthy church. To grow toward community health, the thought goes, we should focus on the personal spiritual health of the individuals who make up the church. This contains some truth, but it misses the important contribution of community to individual health. We could phrase this in another way: healthy churches produce healthy individuals. Spiritual healthy churches produce spiritual healthy believers. It can be true that healthy Christians produce a healthy church but we often overemphasize the role of the individual over the role of the community. If the church is unhealthy, then that church will produce disciples that are unhealthy. One healthy Christian brought into spiritually sick community will become spiritually sick because of community.
Definition of “church”
Ekklesia is the Greek word that is almost always translated as church in contemporary English Bibles. Means the called out ones. In the original Greek NT, ekklesia refers to a people, the assembly of God’s followers, the community of those who belong to Him. Ekklesia can describe local communities of Christians such as in Acts 11:26 where they were first called Christians. It can also describe Christians as a whole regardless of their location. This implies that “each local group of Christians is not merely related to the total church but in fact is the total church in the palce where it exists.” In the NT world the church was the church without any more description necessary. Not Methodists, or Baptists, or Presbyterians. No denominations, Christian or not. Part of the church or not.
It was not until later that this word was associated with a building because Christians did not have buildings. Without ekklesia a church building is just a building.
Going through this series with a book by Daniel Overdorf called “Rediscovering Community.” The book gives this definition of church that we will unpack as we go along: The church is the community of God’s people rooted in His eternal plan, initiated in His covenant with Abraham, expressed through His covenant with Moses, brought to fruition through Christ’s covenant of blood, empowered by the HS to minister to one another and to extend the grace and truth of Christ to the world, glorifying God throughout all generations and into eternity. Hope join us on this journey of community and church.
Had an elder give me some thoughts to effectively preach to this ekklesia. Pray that some of those concerns will be answered in this series.
