Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s)
This one is for you fellow "church leaders" out there…
Imagine a church that really behaved as a complete body. Where every member (and I don’t mean the ones who went forward and said some silly phrase of initiation… I mean the people who are part of the church on a regular basis) was an active and participating member of the body. Not only in carrying out the decisions of the head (which we often mistakenly think is the governing board of elders or the senior pastor – but in reality is Jesus himself (Col 1:18) but in actually helping to hear direction from the Head and lead in that direction.
Imagine a group of believers doing life together (aka, a church) who are in constant contact with the Vine… and know what He is thinking… and hear from Him regularly. Imagine if everyone had an opportunity to share with each other what they were hearing from the Vine and that the Vine himself would feed the same direction He wants for that body to all of its members… and they listened and obeyed.
Imagine a church that is not focused on the pastor, the programming, the building, the budget, the music, or anything else condemned to this life only — but instead was focused on loving each other and the people God places in their path as they live each moment with eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfector of the faith.
Imagine a church that is not an organization run by meetings and rules and policies and people to present and uphold a certain image in all of the public meetings, but instead a large group of life-changed individuals listening together to their Life-Changer and being highly regarded (Acts 5:13) in their community for their love and enjoying the favor of all the people. (Acts 2:47)
The church is a living, breathing organism. It is in fact the Body of Christ. (many scripture references here… check Colossians as above, and then most of the rest of the New Testament) It is the God-arranged collection of individuals who love Him in a geographical area. But we have, in our consumer-oriented culture, made it into more of an organization that presents a certain product that we try to tailor to people’s interests so as to get more people to come try it out… with the noble purpose of getting them to know Jesus – but our method is most definitely akin to that of a large corporation marketing a product that we think people should have. We even have our CEOs (senior pastors) and the board of directors (elders, or whatever else we might call them) and middle management (pastoral and other staff). The church most often gets direction from the head through the leadership of these people. There is not usually an individual connection with the Vine… it is more like a bug hanging on to the leaf that is plugged in to the vine. We feed off of their connection to the vine. And we end up sucking them dry sometimes.
I led a marketing campaign once. It was quite extensive. We spent $15,000. We did get a bunch of people to come out and be part of our grand opening. We even got some people into the Kingdom for the first time, I think. Lots of good came from that. But what else could we have done with that $15,000? How many hungry or hurting people could we have helped with that money? But, you say, isn’t eternal salvation more important than a meal, or a home or a car… those are all temporary. But perhaps we could have done both with that money through helping with their immediate needs? Did God need us to advertise on the radio for those people to find their way into the Kingdom? Wouldn’t God have met them in some other way?
We could get into endless circles of arguments here about how and where and when God works. That is not the point. The positive of that experience is that many people were drawn to Jesus through that organization and the large sums of money we spent on marketing. But the negatives are that they were also drawn to allegience to an organization not just allegience to Jesus. And that money could have been spent in so many other ways.
Imagine a church that lived life together, meeting each others needs, listening individually for the voice of God and sharing that collectively until all had heard (or not heard) from God and then moving as a body in a certain direction to accomplish the will of God. Imagine a community impacted by God’s plan for them rather than one that was carefully thought out and that follows the pattern of other successful churches. Imagine a church that was so plugged in to the Vine that they couldn’t help but hear from God for everyday life and even long-term direction (though I don’t think God has a 3-5 yr plan or a 5-10 year plan or a 30 yr plan that he reveals to us… give us THIS DAY our DAILY bread…)
Wow.
I can only imagine.