True church – ekklesia – in the New Testament is an expression Christ in us, among us and through us as we all use our diverse gifts to encourage and build up one another.
Ekklesia and Diverse Gifts, Part 1: The Motivational Gifts
Sexually exploitive church “leaders” are not unique to any one type of church – hierarchical, congregational, organic, whatever. Don’t be naïve, they count on your silence. Only zero tolerance and exposing them will protect others. Scripture commands it.
Confronting Abusive Pastors: A Mandatory Public Reprimand
When we teach folks to be the church, God’s Kingdom can’t help but ripple out into all sorts of improbable places through improbable people – impacting whole communities, towns and cities. Here’s just one related, amazing story, among many …
Miguel Labrador posted a very important blog this morning on Why Leadership and Effectiveness Are Not Benchmarks of Discipleship. I highly recommend his blogs in general, and urge you to subscribe to his blog feed. Miguel is doing it, and not just talking about it, and always brings great insight.
So you want to find ekklesia? Maybe you’re looking in all the wrong places.
https://crossroadjunction.com/2012/02/04/fringe/
I spit out my coffee laughing when I first saw this. I was so surprised, I couldn’t help it.
I LOVE IT!
Don’t be so hyper about needing leaders. They will emerge, in God’s timing, and if authentic, will lead by example as ones who are among you and not over you. Until then, just learn to have fellowship where you can minister one to another – as taught in the New Testament.
https://crossroadjunction.com/2011/10/31/leadership/
On Christmas eve several years ago, Marianne and I spent time with about thirty brothers in the jail. During our time of fellowship, one of the men read the poem below.
Here’s the story behind the poem, then the poem …
Earlier that December, I shared with those men how our journey in the Lord is like Israel’s journey from slavery in Egypt, through the desert, and then into the promised land.
God takes us out of the bondage of Egypt, but then uses the wilderness to burn Egypt out of us.
In the wilderness, God prepares us to take possession of the promised land – that place where we are able to own and responsibly manage the things He has created us to both be and do.
There are those who promote an insular “deeper life”, which never seems to go anywhere. Have an adventure! Seek Christ’s authentic life instead.
https://crossroadjunction.com/2012/07/20/religion-3/
In Romans 12, Paul lists what Biblical scholars often call the seven “motivational gifts.”
Promoting Our Own Core Motivations
I like that description. After years of pastoral counseling with hundreds of people, I’ve come to deeply respect how God creates each of us with different core motivations. Furthermore, among Christians, those seven core motivational gifts often correspond to God’s unique calling for each believer.
When we tend to elevate our own gift, motivation and calling above all others, however, and think the Church and God’s people need to do the same, our “gift” becomes oppressive.
Lately, I’ve been contemplating what worship is, and looks like, when God’s people authentically gather together as His “ekklesia”.
In the Bible, “ekklesia” is the Greek word often translated “church”. But it means far more than what most “churches” have become.
For Christians, the New Testament concept of ekklesia involves God’s people actively forming community, including meeting together. As a community, and in our gatherings, we then participate – each and every one – in expressing the life of Christ in us, among us, and through us. These days, that ideal is often called “organic” church.
Rob Moley, in his blog Restore the Word, wrote yesterday on “The Great Commission: Discipling Individuals or Nations?”.
In it, he says this about the Great Commission:
Rather than being a command to influence nations with the principles and truths of God’s kingdom, the logic of the command in Matt. 28:19-20 is to make disciples from every nation. Then, as ambassadors of God’s kingdom, these disciples are able to influence all aspects of society, and God willing, even disciple whole nations.
His point is that the Great Commission is about transforming individuals into disciples who obey all that Christ commands, who in turn transform the world around them.
Leading up to Tuesday’s elections here in the United States, I often used this blog and Facebook to urge Christians to vote. (See Does Jesus Want You to Vote?)
When I did, I always got heated push back – mainly from other Christians who oppose Biblical civic engagement.
Generally, they think God is only interested our personal relationships with Him, or that He is solely focused on the Church.
Marianne and I have a plaque in our home which says:
“One who practices hospitality entertains God Himself.”
This week, look around and make an effort to see those who have no family or are going through hard times – then ask if they’d like to share Thanksgiving with you and your family at your home later this month.
This is love.
If you live outside the United States and don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, then use some other time of celebration. You will bless, and be blessed!
Does God do what is right, or is it right because God does it?
Many think God is subservient or subject to external standards – that He does what is right because there is a higher moral code that even He obeys.
This denies God’s sovereignty, and as a result many today seek to hold Him to the standard of their own sense of right and wrong.
Life reproduces life. That’s true in nature and it’s true spiritually. Where there is vibrant mature life, there is reproduction.
Life Reproduces Life!
Last week, we saw that truth confirmed yet again as a third-generation fellowship emerged among what some consider a “disreputable” segment of our county.
This new community of believers is in a subculture where Christians and other churches previously lacked the courage to go. Until now, they had been written off as beyond hope.
These new believers found life in Jesus because some cared enough to go where most feared to tread.
The greatest challenge facing the Church today are those who promote truth out of balance:
We don’t go looking for or emphasize miracles, but in our fellowships we’ve been seeing the miraculous happen time and again.
We had one man collapse and then die right in front of the paramedics and the fellowship he had been helping to start in the jail – and then come back to life shortly thereafter on the gurney in the jail infirmary after brothers gathered together to pray for him.
Our nation’s continuing moral and economic decline, and the growing malaise of our increasingly dysfunctional churches, has caused a renewed focus on intercessory prayer.
Intercession without Repentance Is Not Effective
But intercession without transformational repentance – which Biblically involves changing the way we act by changing the way we think – is seldom effective.
While desperately seeking to touch the heart of God through intercession, few seem willing to do the concurrent hard work of understanding the mind of God. The challenges facing our nation, and our churches, require both.
This picture has great significance for me. It is from one of our fellowships – this one meets in my home on Sundays.
Yesterday, as we gathered together, we prayed and give prophetic words of encouragement over Oscar, a close friend who is moving forward with his road-side pit barbeque business by signing a contract to have a mobile food service trailer built for him (Oscar’s Barbeque). He has worked faithfully towards this moment – as unto the Lord – for two years.
I’ve watched and walked with Oscar as he’s progressed over time, step by step, in growing, proving and succeeding in his business model as part of God’s call on his life.
Nearly every move of God gets sidetracked when its main leaders fall into the trap of thinking that their own measure of Christ is the full measure of Christ – and thus start promoting their own perspectives and motivations as normative for all.
Truth Out of Balance is Always Precarious
No one person can ever reflect or express the full measure of Christ. Never – even if they started out truly grasping some essential, needed element of His nature, their ministry initially bore much fruit, and they even once transformed the Christian landscape.
Tragically, it often seems that such leaders slowly and subtly shift from sharing their own measure of Christ, to eventually acting as though it is now the full measure of Christ.
I’ve been thinking a lot about why significant segments of the organic church community in the Western hemisphere have failed to achieve Biblical viability – becoming instead anemic, self-focused and insular.
Even a casual observer must acknowledge that “organic” or “simple” churches in the West (unlike other parts of the world) seldom exhibit dynamic spiritual power; consistent reproduction, growth and maturity; or tangible, transforming impact.
Continue readingAre we living up to God’s plan for His body? What is His plan for His body? Are we all heart? Are we all head?
I believe a spider web exemplifies the body of Christ. A spider web is both beautiful and useful, but also very complex. The spider’s silk has the unique ability to become softer or stiffer depending on the stress the web receives. It is not stagnant but active. God so designed the spider’s web that when one strand breaks, the strength of the entire web actually increases.
God desires the same for His church. There are times when a situation requires softness and the “web” needs to reach out and actively demonstrate that attribute. In contrast, sometimes the body needs to show stiffness and resolve, so rushing to the rescue might not be the best answer.
Ministry One to Another?
On Facebook, I posted a comment supporting a recent blog by Neil Cole about why the “organic church movement” is important. One of my smart-aleck Facebook friends responded:
Organic Church Movement? Is that a movement naturally fertilized? Or maybe movement marching only to organ music. Could also be a church movement of Kidneys, Livers and Colons?
So I thought I’d be a smart aleck in responding:
I believe in the future, and in God’s sovereign ability to redeem history, nations and cultures.
I believe, because right now there is a fellow believer…
In the hospital quietly holding the hand of a friend recovering from life-saving surgery.
In grad school, heeding God’s call to basic research which will lead to new therapies that save countless lives.
Trudging through the woods, visiting tents, and checking on the well being of homeless women who “fell through the cracks”.
Standing outside an abortion clinic, ministering love and hope to a woman who knows neither.
Experiencing the first blush of lace and the joy of total intimacy on his wedding night, undefiled by the world.
Crossroad Junction 