Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Church?!
Mark Roberts recently wrote and entire series about "What is a Church?" Like most things Mark writes, any individual post is frustratingly short, but taken as a whole, the series is quite informative. I do not want to grab a pull quote because I want to take about the picture that emerges when you read the entire thing.
The church is both local and universal. The church is a body; the church is a community. The church has MANY functions. Summarizing the series as a series is impossible.
Which leads to my summary. The church is far more than what I want it to be. The key question is, does that mean it will not be what I want it to be. My response is that provided what we want from the church is legitimately within God's will it will be what we want it to be, but it will also be much more.
Problems arise when we want what we want exclusively, or when our desires for church are something better suited for a secular institution. This means the church is going to be a lot of things, the next key question is how?
My response, and this is the key question for me - is by turning the people loose. It's not about programs and staff, it is about developing disciples that want to do things to advance the kingdom. That means leadership has to do two very hard things. One they have to say "no" to that stuff better suited for elsewhere and two, they have to let go.
Mostly they have to build people, not programs.
The church is both local and universal. The church is a body; the church is a community. The church has MANY functions. Summarizing the series as a series is impossible.
Which leads to my summary. The church is far more than what I want it to be. The key question is, does that mean it will not be what I want it to be. My response is that provided what we want from the church is legitimately within God's will it will be what we want it to be, but it will also be much more.
Problems arise when we want what we want exclusively, or when our desires for church are something better suited for a secular institution. This means the church is going to be a lot of things, the next key question is how?
My response, and this is the key question for me - is by turning the people loose. It's not about programs and staff, it is about developing disciples that want to do things to advance the kingdom. That means leadership has to do two very hard things. One they have to say "no" to that stuff better suited for elsewhere and two, they have to let go.
Mostly they have to build people, not programs.
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