Freedom in Christ is not about losing your identity in Him, but finding it through Him …
Including the wonderfully diverse gifts, motivations and callings He has for each of us.
Category: Simple Church
Christian Maturity:
Learning to use God’s gifts, motivations and callings for you …
In ways that aren’t dismissive of – but affirm – His differing gifts, motivations and callings for others.
New believers often need potty training.
Older believers, however, often need reminding that this inevitably involves messy situations …
Because in real discipleship, “accidents” happen.
Did you know:
In the New Testament, the context of the Greek words typically translated as “preach” or “preaching” is always outside the church toward unbelievers …
And never in the church toward believers?
Or that the Greek words describing how “teachings” occurred in the church – with believers – primarily mean participatory, interactive dialogue …
And not one-way preaching or monologue sermons.
If that surprises you, check it out yourself.
Then ask, what else about “church” have you uncritically assumed or done …
Without studying Scripture to first see what God actually says about it?
The key to healthy churches is simple:
Are God’s gifts to you about advancing your ministry …
Or about advancing His wonderfully diverse gifts in others?
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” 1 Peter 4:10
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” Philippians 2:3-4
May our only agenda
Be to avoid all agendas
That keep God’s people
From fulfilling His agenda
For themselves, one another,
And a world He yet loves.
In God’s Kingdom, leading behind a pulpit …
Is about as effective as leading behind a desk.
If we become myopic (i.e., nearsighted) by viewing everyone and everything in terms of our own God-given gifts, motivations and perspectives …
Or our own pet doctrines, understandings and sensibilities …
Or even our individual personality, including our hurts and achievements …
Then we will never understand or experience true church – ekklesia – as mandated in the New Testament.
Yet this is why most house churches become stiflingly insular and fail, and most legacy churches become stiflingly homogeneous and hierarchical.
Continue readingUnder the New Covenant, worship is not about “entering into God’s presence” …
With weekly church “services” – whether traditional or contemporary – designed to lead us there through manipulated feelings of intensity.
In fact, there are no such concepts regarding church or worship anywhere in the New Testament.
Nope, not, nada …
Just ain’t there.
Rather, the New Testament defines true worship as living holy lives of sacrificial obedience and obeisance to God, 24/7.
Moreover, under the New Covenant we are to be His temple, with His presence now in us …
Each and every one.
This is why the New Testament simply says that when we gather together, we should sing God’s praises to encourage one another.
That’s it – nothing more and nothing less – and the New Testament gives no other reason to sing when we gather as His church.
It also says nothing about gathering to “enter into,” “invoke,” “seek” or be “ushered into” God’s presence.
Until we fully grapple with this distinction, we will never understand why being the church as the New Testament actually shows it …
Looks so much different than church as we’ve otherwise come to know it.
In the Kingdom of God, there are no spectators …
Except, of course, on Sunday mornings.
If, after the Cross, you’re still trying to invoke, approach or enter into God’s presence like in the Old Testament …
It ain’t true worship.
Under the New Covenant, we instead are to daily live worthy of – and in obedience to – God’s presence now in us …
Which is true worship.
Ignore this distinction, and you will never understand authentic church or real discipleship in the New Testament.
Staged “church” …
Is very scripted, professional and alluring.
But …
Is it New Testament?
Every church has some who are thinkers …
Some who are feelers …
Some who are doers …
And some who are relaters.
Only as they learn to esteem each other’s gifts above their own, can their own individual gifts fully blossom between them …
For the mutual edification of all.
“Unity” based on anything less, however, leads to strife …
Which helps explain why so many churches are unhealthy instead.
Take away “the Senior Pastor,” his stage, his pews, his “worship” team and his building …
And what’s left?
Perhaps, God willing …
The beginning of “church” as actually taught and shown in the New Testament.
The New Testament doesn’t say “church” is where we encounter or are ushered into God’s presence through “worship” or any other means.
There’s not a single verse in the entire New Testament to that effect.
Nope, not, nadda …
Just ain’t there.
Rather, the New Testament says that Christians already have God’s presence in us and when we gather together we’re to minister one to another …
Which includes congregationally singing God’s praises to encourage each other.
Big difference.
Let’s start being the church as God instructs in His Word …
Rather than feeding our own carnality and calling it “church.”
I understand why “church” is often reduced to sitting in impersonal rows to watch a staged, scripted “service” each week by the “senior pastor” and his “worship” team.
Although it has nothing to do with church as the New Testament commands it …
It does eliminate the hard work of actually being the church.
In contrast, the New Testament says we’re to be a functional community which, among other things, gathers together to unassumingly minister one to another …
By strengthening and encouraging each other through the diverse gifts and abilities God distributes among us.
Mono-church?
When a church or movement organizes around the vision, natural abilities, or spiritual gifts of a particular leader …
It will grow rapidly at first but then stagnate as it eventually bumps up against his limits.
This is not how it should be.
“Church” must never become a platform for one particular person, ministry or mission.
True church in Scripture is the wonderful, dynamic, fluid, multi-gifted and fully participatory Body of Christ …
Where we all minister one to another and to a waiting world, each according to the unique grace and differing gifts God distributes among us.
There is no mono-church in the New Testament!
Lord, raise up true elders – “grown ups” among us …
Who guard your flock by teaching sound doctrine and confronting those who define:
Doubt as faith;
Obedience as optional;
Grace as merit;
Tolerance as love;
Truth as relative;
Perception as reality;
Morality as feelings;
Scripture as subjective;
Diverse gifts as distractions;
Unity as conformity;
Worship as an event; or
Church as a platform.
May we, Lord, understand the times and proclaim with Paul:
“Henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive …” Eph. 4:14
Churches focus on meetings, hoping community will happen.
It seldom works.
What, instead, if churches were communities where gatherings happen?
Maybe it’s time to stop doing it backwards.
Mega-Church Celebrities and Television Preachers:
Multimillion dollar mansions, private jets, net worths exceeding tens of millions of dollars …
All from “ministry.”
Paul of Tarsus:
“Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.”
Get it?
What if “churches” stopped being a “service” where the few try to usher the many into God’s “presence?”
(A concept nowhere found in the New Testament.)
What if, instead, they became gatherings where all can express God’s diverse presence already in each of us, as the Holy Spirit directs, for the mutual edification of one another?
(Just like it says in the New Testament.)
Wouldn’t that be amazing?
These days, church “leaders” seem more interested in an elevated stage and delivering prepared messages …
Than living among us and making disciples as a prepared person.
The problem is …
Many folks seem to want it that way.
Jesus established the church as His local participatory assembly …
To represent and advance His Kingdom here on Earth.
Instead, we’ve turned it into an entertainment business with weekly staged performances.
What’s trendy is seldom eternal …
And what’s eternal is seldom trendy.
When “church” and “worship” are about stirring up carnal feelings, God’s not there.
And that thing you feel?
It’s not God, because it’s more about you …
Than Him.
It may be intense, but trust me …
It ain’t Him.
Plumbline Faith 