ReIMAGINING CHURCH

ReIMAGINING CHURCH

 ¶ For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body,

though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
First Corinthians 12:12

After Christ ascended back to His Father, He then sent His Spirit into the world on the Day of Pentecost to construct His body, His bride, the Church, throughout the earth. Jesus Christ had already revealed to His apostles that He had come not just to save the lost but also to gather the saved into what He called: the Church. Clearly, Christ thought the Church was one of the centrepieces of His plan to save and teach the lost. But what did the original apostles imagine that Jesus meant? Almost certainly they imagined that Jesus meant something like the synagogues that they were already used to. This would explain why all of the earliest churches that the apostles commenced were structured in exactly the same way as a synagogue’s leadership was structured. But as the Church grew and spread across the Empire, the way each church was organised was reimagined. Then over the following centuries as churches spread across and beyond the Empire, it was reimagined again. History reveals that what some church leaders imagined for the Church was far from what Jesus would have approved of. Despite this, in the final revelation that Christ gave to the last surviving of His apostles (“The Book of Revelation”) He presented John with a vision of a glorious, victorious, enormous church, to deliver to seven of the persecuted churches of Asia Minor. Yet there seems to be a huge gap between what the Church became, and perhaps is, and what this revelation declared it would one day be! The lessons from this gap between history of the Church and this ultimate vision of Christ for His Church described in parts of the Book of Revelation should cause us to realise that we need to reimagine how our church can be what Christ imagined it will become and to do what we can in our generation to close that gap!

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given,
to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God,
who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God
might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 3:8-10

INFORMING OUR REiMAGINATION OF THE CHURCH

To reimagine what Christ and the apostles thought of “church” we have to get a glimpse of what the church is described as doing in the New Testament.

Firstly, we can see that the church met each Sunday as their priority (1Cor. 16:2).

We can see that it was organised with and led by gifted and called leaders (Eph. 4:11-12; 1Tim. 3). These gifted and called leaders were trained to care and minister to people’s needs accordingly.

We see that when the church met they fellowshipped together over food and drink and often ate meals together (Acts 2:46).

Their meetings were both small and large, in that, they all met together and they met in smaller groups within each others’ homes (Acts 2:46-47; 20:20).

We see that it conducted its gatherings in an orderly manner under the oversight of these leaders (1Cor. 14:40).

Prayers were offered to God for [1] their rulers and leaders, [2] the needs within their church, and [3] for people to be saved (Col. 4:2; 1Tim. 2:1-4).

They sang their worship to God together (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16).

The Word of God was read and then explained through preaching and teaching (1Cor. 15:2; 2Tim 4:2).

An offering was taken up when they met (1Cor. 16:1-2; Phil. 4:18; 1Tim. 5:17).

They had a formal membership process and roll (“the right hand of fellowship” Gal 2:9; 1Tim. 5:9-11).

They baptised new believers (Acts 2:41; Rom. 6:1-5).

The Lord’s Supper was regularly celebrated to commemorate Christ’s atoning death (1Cor. 11:26-29). 

They exercised the spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit to minister God’s grace and edify each other (1Cor. 12:4-11; 1Peter 4:10-11).

While this is how the church functioned for the first few hundred years of its existence, the historic record shows that it ceased doing many of these Christ ordained functions. Let us consider some of the glimpses in the Book of Revelation of how Jesus foresaw what His Church would ultimately become.

 

A VISION OF A GLORIOUS, VICTORIOUS, ENORMOUS CHURCH

¶ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number,
from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,
standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes,
with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice,
“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Revelation 7:9-10

¶ Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude,
like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder,
crying out,“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult
and give Him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and His Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
¶ for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
Revelation 19:6-8

The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.
This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection!
Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ,
and they will reign with Him for a thousand years.
Revelation 20:5-6

 

OUR REiMAGINATION OF THE CHURCH 

Having looked at what the earliest churches uniformly did, and what Christ revealed it would one day become, let us now reimagine how these aspects of those churches’ activities might be done today.

Early Christians recognised that the significance of the Jewish sabbath as a day of rest from normal activity to come together with God’s people to worship, receive God’s Word, and pray, was transferred to Sunday (the first day of the week 1Cor. 16:2). This was at a time when the Greco-Roman world did not have “weekends” where either Saturday or Sunday was set aside for either Jews or Christians to worship! Thus, coming together on Sunday to worship, fellowship, and even eat a meal together, would have been especially special for those Christians who were slaves! These slaves could come together with wealthy people and be treated as an equal because of what Christ had done by saving them too. We now live in a world where diverse people rarely have a time and place to meet together as equals — but our church can be that for people today!

We live in a world where leaders are often susceptible to corruption and pathological behaviour (that is, they don’t really care about others). But our church can model servant-hearted leadership to the oppressed, downtrodden, despised, depressed, and demonised. While a few of our leaders will be paid a modest wage, the vast majority of our leaders will serve as volunteers without expecting anything in return – with the exception of an occasional thank you – but ultimately, the longing that one day they will hear our Master say, “Well done good and faithful servant!” (Matt. 25:21).

Much of the music that our culture enjoys today is focused on the self and contain lots of pronouns such as me, my, I, mine. The music and lyrics we use in our contemporary worship is not performed by celebrity musicians or performers. When we worship together we are not focusing on ourselves. On the contrary, we are worshiping by focusing on GOD, our Heavenly Father and His Christ, and we do so by the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Our time of singing our worship together is a crucial antidote to the world’s toxic  obsession with the individual and the self. While the Church has produced many hundreds of hymns in generations gone by, we can cultivate fresh sounds and lyrics to declare timeless truths about GOD.

In a world that has its priorities all messed up, our church can be a place and people where priorities are realigned to accord with the priorities that make for peace and good mental health (Matt. 6:33). This is why we should buck against the cultural trend to view Sunday as just another day and take a stand to treat it as the the Lord’s day (Rev. 1:10). But we can also create sacred spaces and times to provide doorways and bridges for those unable to join with us in our Sunday morning Worship and Word services. This is why our livestream is proving so invaluable to many people who are not able to be present with us on a Sunday.

The world likes to segment and put people into boxes – often generational boxes – but we can reimagine our church to be a place where people of all ages meet together and interact. This can give people a rare opportunity to mingle together as a multigenerational clan.

Let’s reimagine church in other ways too – not by abandoning what the Scripture describes are those Christ-ordained aspects of our various functions which I have listed earlier, but by reimagining how they might be done today. And may we increasingly know the love of God the Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship with the Holy Sprit, as we do so!

Pastor at Large,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

DO NOT FEAR THE WOLF'S whisper

 

Is it really a fair fight? I mean, seriously? Jesus described our spiritual foe as a ravenous wolf, and His followers as a flock of sheep! Seriously, is it really a fair fight for the unwitting, unrelenting, ravenous, blood-thirsty, devious wolf who has already been defeated by ‘the Lamb of God’? Is it really a fair fight for the spiritual demonic wolves who now know they have been de-fanged and de-clawed by the Lamb who has now given His authority and power to His flock so that “these signs will accompany those who believe: in My Name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:17-18)? No. It is not a fair fight for the wolf, and the fight is only going to get worse for it. And this is why all members of the flock of Christ should never fear the wolf that Jesus warned us about or the wolf’s whisper!

He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd,
who does not own the sheep,
sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees,
and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
John 10:12

THE WOLF’S DEVIOUS MISSION

The wolf’s mission is to undermine God’s will and plan by “snatching” and “scattering” Christ’s flock (Jn. 10:12). The wolf only has one strategy: deception. It uses this strategy in various forms, such as lying, stealing, killing, and destroying – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (Jn. 10:10a) which all begins with a whisper into the minds of people.

The picture of a wolf was only one of the descriptions that Christ and His apostles used to describe the forces of evil. The members of this defeated force of evil are also described as beasts, bulls, serpents, and their defeated enraged former prince was referred to as “a great red dragon” (Rev. 12:3, 9). We should be under no illusion that while Christ has defeated the enemies of our souls, we are still engaged in a dangerous post-war series of battles where our enemy seeks to plant deceptive thoughts into the minds of people – even believers. This is why the New Testament presents the battle-plan for every believer:

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God,
and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
Second Corinthians 10:3-5

The wolves who seek to “snatch” sheep from Christ’s flock – the believer’s local church – also seek to “scatter” the flock of Christ through whispers of deception. We are in a cosmic battle that Christ expects we can win in His Name and strength because He has now sent His Spirit to aid us to to withstand these devious whispers of the evil ones!

What the closing book of the Bible reveals about this cosmic battle between the Champion of Good (depicted in Revelation as the ‘Arnion’ – translated into English as the [little] Lamb) and the villainous dragon, is that appearances can be misleading. (This was surely one of the main purposes of Christ giving this revelation to John to deliver to the beleaguered members of the seven churches of Asia Minor as they attempted to withstand the onslaught of Satan’s-puppet-Rome’s three-and-a-half-years of bloody persecution of Christians from AD64.) Despite appearances, the little Lamb who was brutalised then crucified on the cross of shame, would be ultimately be revealed as the all-conquering Victor over all evil, sin, death, wickedness, and especially the fallen-prince-turned-evil-dragon!

Saying with a loud voice,“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”
And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea,
and all that is in them, saying,“To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
Revelation 5:12-13

 

OUR UNSEEN ENEMIES DO NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW 

The truth is, our unseen enemies have now been defeated and have only one weapon at their disposal: lies. And they do not want you to know this!

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.
He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth,
because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character,
for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:44

These devilish wolves who whisper into our unseen ears with their subtle yet hideous lies, such as “God doesn’t really love you!” “You’re not really a Christian! If you were really a Christian you wouldn’t sin, or doubt, or worry!” “You can’t belong to church – church is only for true Christians who live holy lives – and you certainly don’t!” (Can you see through these lies? Can see that these invisible wolves are simply doing what Christ warned us they would try to do – snatch sheep from the fold, and, scatter the flock by isolating the sheep from each other through deceptions?)

Wolves love to hunt at night. Their howls are exaggerated by the darkness. The darkness also deceives their intended prey into thoughts of intimidation and unnecessary anxiety. Spiritual wolves are no different. Note how John’s Gospel often uses the word “night” to highlight deceptiveness of the evil ones (Jn. 9:4; 11:10:10; 13:30).

At the root of our worst fears is our greatest fear – the fear of the unknown. (I suspect that the popular support for the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill unfairly took advantage of this crippling fear!) The aged Dr. F.W. Boreham would write in his autobiography –

Like the medieval saint, we can testify that
we have had many and great troubles in our time,
but most of them never happened!
Dr. F. W. Boreham, “My Pilgrimage”, p.221

In support of this discovery about how we fear, we might paraphrase something that Mark Twain wrote as – 

“Our worst fears are the ones which never eventuate!”

 

“YOU SHEEP BEAR A STRANGE FAMILY RESEMBLANCE
TO THE AGNUS DEI!”

When you gave your life to Christ, the Lamb of God, the apostle John tells us in his epistle that the Father did something profound to your soul. Not only was a dead soul made alive, not only were your blind eyes opened, not only was your indifferent and calloused heart taken out and a new healthy heart transplanted into you, but God placed the spiritually-genetic code with the likeness of His Son into your sou! Whether you realise or not, if you are a follower of Christ you are more than a follower of Christ! In the unseen realm you now have a striking resemblance to Christ!

No one born of God makes a practice of sinning,
for God’s seed [Greek word: ‘sperma’] abides in him;
and he cannot keep on sinning,
because he has been born of God.
First John 3:9

Thus, as the devilish wolves bear a resemblance to their defeated, evil, fallen, and former prince, we, the sheep of God’s pasture, bear an even more striking resemblance to the Lamb of God (in Latin: the Agnus dei). No wonder the forces of evil want to destroy you. You, we, because of our redeemed new natures, now bear a striking resemblance in the spiritual realm to the Lamb of God who defeated the dragon and his hordes of imbecilic and doomed beings! But what many redeemed sons and daughters of God may not be aware of is that we have all been gifted with armour and weaponry which makes us invincible to to schemes of the unseen wolf pack. Thus the apostle Paul could write:

If you forgive anyone for anything, I also forgive him—
for indeed what I have forgiven (if I have forgiven anything)
I did so for you in the presence of Christ,
so that we may not be exploited by Satan (for we are not ignorant of his schemes).
Second Corinthians 2:10-11

 

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE WHISPERS OF WOLVES

Let us never underestimate the ferocity of the unseen battle that we are in. Our invisible wolfish enemies are relentless in their efforts to deceive God’s people. The truth is that we far outnumber them. This is why they particularly target those they can manipulate to perpetuate their deceit. We have seen that it was the devil himself who continually encircled the original twelve disciples of Christ seeking the most the influential among them to do its bidding. We get a shocking picture of this revealed in Matthew 16 just after Jesus had asked His disciples who others said He was:

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah!
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 16:15-17

But within seconds it became apparent that Simon Peter had an unseen enemy whisper something false but appealing into his mind:

¶ From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem
and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed,
and on the third day be raised.  And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him,
saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to You.”
But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a hindrance to Me.
For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Matthew 16:21-23

Jesus later revealed to Peter, after He had dismissed Judas and Satan (Jn. 13:27) from the upper room where Jesus was delivering His Farewell Discourse, that Satan had actually wanted Simon Peter as his agent of betrayal of Christ: 

¶ “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat,
but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again,
strengthen your brothers.”
Luke 22:31-32

It is difficult to miss then how susceptible we all are to the wicked scheming of the enemy—if even the leader of the apostles could have an undetected devilish whisper pass from his mind to his lips, then perhaps we could too. This is why Christ said that the devil would also seek to use Church leaders to also serve as his wolves (Matt. 7:15). However, Christ has ensured that we have an advantage that Simon Peter did not have at that time. After Christ ascended he not only led some of the most threatening fallen heavenly beings into permanent captivity (Eph. 4:8), He and the Father sent the Holy Spirit into the world to abide in each believer through the available baptism in the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4, 38-39). Thus, each believer, each sheep of the flock of God now has the authority and power to withstand the whispers of the devilish wolves! 

 

THWARTING THE WHISPERS OF WOLVES

The spiritually on-guard sheep within Christ’s fold know that these wolves which Christ described in John 10:12 scheme against Christ’s flock by attempting to whisper into the minds of vulnerable believers thoughts that would isolate them from the flock, and even seek to scatter their flock from their fold. Knowing all this, here are five ways that any believer can thwart the whispers of the devil’s unseen wolves, by fighting in the following ways:

1. Stay in the fold – resist the wolf’s whisper to separate from the fold (your local church).

2. Stay connected to your food source – resist the wolf’s whisper to neglect your daily feeding from your reading of God’s Word.

3. Stay in communication with the Lamb of God – withstand the wolf’s whisper to give up praying to God.

4. Stay behind the shield of God’s truth – detect and reject the lies of the wolf’s whispers compared to the truth of God’s Word.

5. Stay focused on the Lamb on the Throne – the wolf’s whispers seek to distract/divert/disillusion you from the One they hate, but the One you adore – who also adores you.  

For these reasons, you actually have no need to fear the whispers from a devilish wolf. But it is a constant, unrelenting battle that every believer is engaged in, which requires these five pieces of armour and weaponry. Our unseen enemies are more afraid of you when you in the fold of Christ, than you could ever be of them. This is why every time we baptise another redeemed soul we are taking “territory” from our invisible enemy. And this is why we need every battle-hardened senior follower of Christ to learn from what Jesus told Simon Peter who had also been targeted by the enemy, “Satan demanded to have you…but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:32a). That is, we need to pray for each other also that our faith in Christ may not fail. And I pray that your faith may not fail either!

Your Pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.