1. The church as defined by Paul in Eph 5:23b "Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior." (NIV), is the body or group of believers. That is all that it is. Anyone who believes that Jesus is Lord and accepts him as their savior is a member of "the church". The definition of the church is so simple because that is how God intended it to be. It is no different than when Christ walked this earth. Time and time again, the Pharisees tried to complicate things and bring up their man made laws and rules. And time and time again Christ chided them on that. Christs whole goal is to bring the lost back to his Father. Period.
Having said that, the nature of the church is that it is made up of believers both old and new; dead and alive; from all over the world. The mission of the church is to go, make , baptize and teach as given by Jesus. As far as the structure goes, God is the Father, Christ is the Son and intercedes for all believers and then everyone else is part of the family. There is no hierarchy. No one is above anyone else. In 1 Cor 12:12, Paul tells us "the body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ." (NIV) This tells us that not everyone is the same, but we all serve an important part of the church. Just as no one part is more important than the other, no one person is more important than anyone else.
Unfortunately, man, who is flawed, has decided to take what God has given us and improve it. Thereby creating denominations and separation and division. By dividing our efforts we actually weaken our ability to reach out to the lost instead of strengthening it.
Think of it this way, if you had a pane of glass, and took a handful of marbles and threw them one at a time at the glass you more than likely wouldn't break it. You might get lucky, but the probability if very small. Now, if you took that handful of marbles and put them in your sock and tied it tight so they were all together and then threw that against the glass you would most definitely break it. It is the same with Christians. As individual churches we are going to get some nonbelievers, but think of the impact we would have if all the churches in our towns would join together.
2. I think the church struggles with this task, especially in this postmodern world we live in. PMs don't believe in one truth, so as the church if we are presenting the "unmasking of the powers" as an absolute, we will more than likely be rejected which in turn, turns those unbelievers away before we can even really begin to tell them the Good News. I like the adage"people don't care about how much you know, until they know how much you care." To me that means that we as the church need to create, build and maintain those relationships with unbelievers and continue to show them what God has done for us and how because of his Son the "created powers, though fallen, are themselves now disarmed." (pg 134) In doing this we will create in others the desire to learn more about the one we call Savior.
3. Out here in PA we have quite a few dairy farms. When you drive by one you typically see these little white sheds lined up, and inside each shed is a calf. These sheds serve as a starting point for the young cow. It provides shelter, protection and an area where they can grow and not have to worry about being trampled on by the other adult cows. This is due to the fact that the dairy farms main goal is to produce milch so they can sell it. As much as they like to increase their herd size they can't very well let the calves wander around and get in the way of the others, besides the calves aren't ready for dealing with the entire herd. Their sheds allow them to grow and make mistakes and prepare to join the herd. This is similar to the purpose of Mobile Missional Structures (MMS). They are designed to bring in new believers and feed them spiritual milch, until they are ready for something more. Then they either send them out to start something new or they send them to join an existing church. Existing churches do bring in some new believers, but the MMS are designed to reach out to the unbelievers in such a way while at the same time not creating dissension and strife amongst the believers.
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1 comment:
Very insightful post Jason, I agree we can make it to complicated and lose hold of the purpose for the church and our lives. Unmasking the powers is a vital aspect of preparing the soil for the good seed; you have a valid point in how and who is involved in this ministry. The gospel is our primary message and the sensational and deeper realities have to be discerned in regard to when, who, and why we would teach and equip disciples for intercession and prophetic prayer ministry.
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