 Who is my Church? #1 Seeking Church Authenticity
Dear Brothers and Sisters, The common question that we usually get around to when we talk with others about our church affiliation is “Where do you go to Church”? And though it is not meant to imply that our churches are only locations or buildings, it’s often hard these days to separate an institutional inference to a church from the people who meet there who are in fact … “The Church”. Aren't ...“People” …actually "the Church”, not locations, buildings, institutions, organizations, programs, or many of the other aspects of our industrial/commercial culture that we use in the conducting of our religious life. So shouldn’t we be asking something like, “Who is our Church?”. But we don’t, and such a question does seem awkward and foreign in some ways. Why? …are we more in the habit of thinking that “Church” is more like a programmed event at a certain location like a movie at a movie theater? Or do we think of church as meeting with … “people” in some sence regardless of where or when…, to fellowship, share, encourage, and commune with each other, pray for one another, seek the Lord’s wisdom and instruction together, and to give thanks and praise to Him together. Is our church more of an institution, location, and time, than meeting with our spiritual family? Is our church a family gathering of spiritual brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers who take care of us and we of them, or a program that we check off from our calendars like meetings at the PTA? Have we somehow succumbed to re-creating the family gatherings of the church into the image of our commercial culture? It certainly would not be a hard thing to do, being raised and surrounded by 20th/21st century America, we are programmed to operate in the materialist, commercial, efficient, accomplishment manner that our culture values and rewards. And if we operate our church organizations as businesses and programs, would it not be surprising if turned our church gatherings into shows and efficient mechanisms rather than gatherings of extended spiritual families and weekly reunions? So, if we look at our church gatherings and find indeed that the world has pushed us into its mold more than we would like, or if we are looking for greater authenticity, simplicity, and spiritual family, then what are we looking for? I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do have some thoughts from my own studies, and my experiences from my life of church involvement, that I would like to share with you in this series of blog entries where I hope to explore some of those questions. Jonny The List of entry headings: #2. It starts with a Person – God is a PERSON! -or- The importance of persons-people. #3. Depersonalization, a present problem ...and opportunity - or- Persons versus Machines. #4. The Church as a Family-or-The Implications of the doctrine of Adoption for the Church -or- "We were never meant to have just one Father!" #5. The Church as Family -or- Becoming Persons with a Home Again. #6. The Church is a "Real" Family? - From Table Talk Magazine. #7. Realizing the Church is actually a Family #1, Evidence from the New Testament Book of Romans. #8. Realizing the Church is actually a Family #2, More Evidence from the New Testament. #9. In process of being written....So, if this is true, what do we, or should we do with this in our time? #10. In process of being written...And how do we get there from here? -or- overcoming the shock of Spiritual relatives, (Darth Vader voice) Luke you are my brother...you can read it in the Scriptures...(Luke) NNNOOOOOO!!! To dwell above with Saints we love won't that be Glory, but to dwell below with Saints we know....now that's another story...
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"Who s my Church?" #2 It starts with a Person – God is a PERSON! -or- The importance of persons-people.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, It just seems to me that to correctly understand the Church we must first get this right ... It may seem strange to describe God in this way, but if we think about this deeply, I believe we will conclude that God is indeed a Person. The fact that He is THE SPIRITUAL PERSON before and behind all things, is a foundational axiomatic revelation about God to us beginning, in the opening chapters of Genesis, and then in the Gospels. God spoke to Adam and Eve in the Garden as a Person, God dealt with Moses as a Person, Jesus came as a Person. God speaks, acts, creates, communicates, has a plan, a will, creates us after His own Image, incarnates Jesus as a Person who is both fully God and fully man the full revelation of the Father, and all this reveals to us that God “IS” indeed a Person. The PERSON from whom our own personhood is derived. Yet He is not a person like us, we must not anthropomorphize. He is before us, above us, and though we are like “Him”, we are not like Him in all ways. But we do have or are,... Souls, the evidence and embodiment of Gods living Spiritual image and Personhood in us. Something that the rest of creation does not share. Yet throughout the history of the world, humanity has corrupted our understanding of the incorruptible Person of God into images “in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures" Rom. 1:23. Substituting forces, philosophies, spirits, nature, etc., any way that humanity can reduce or obscure God’s Glorious Personhood, fallen humanity has tried. And even in the Church we have substituted and broken the second commandment by making graven images of theologies, ceremonies, rituals, habits, orders of worship, institutions, laws, emotions, truncated partial or favored passages of scripture, emphasizing one member of the Trinity to the near exclusion of the others, or even worshiping the Bible (works/ Pharisees) instead of seeking the living Person of God through His Words to us in the Bible (Faith)! And granted all of these may have their own proper places but not when used to lower God to our level and to our control in order to gain some foothold of influence or control over Him. He is transcendent above all these, He is His own Sovereign, Holy but infinitely near Person that we cannot manipulate, control, or fully know, but that we can fully trust, communicate, and interact with. Let say it graphically, ...our Father, God, is not a thing, ...but the self existant "Living Person" behind all things. So why is this so critical for the Church? Because as A.W. Tozer once said, “We tend by a secret law of the soul, to move toward our mental image of God”. So, it seems to me, that if we do not understand this aspect of God correctly, if we substitute other lesser "Personal" ideas about HIm, then we will by default not understand ourselves, other human beings, the Church, or Gods plan correctly, ...and we may carry it out incorrectly. But if we understand ourselves and all of humankind in terms of our relationship to Him as our Creator and Father, the ultimate “Person” in this universe, and our trustworthy example of what it means to grow as “persons” through our relationship to Him. Then we will begin to understand His plan as having our own personhood and that of others as being central to His plan of creation, redemption, and re-creation. Persons are central, persons- people because of their derived value in the Image of God the Person, come before institutions, plans, programs, rituals, meetings, etc., with their own value and their own protected sovereignty. Didn't Jesus intimate that the value of just one soul made in God’s Image, is more valuable than the whole world Matt.16:26? In fact may we almost say that God’s whole plan “IS” persons-people through whom the whole creation will be redeemed Rom. 8:19-21? So, now does the question “Who is my Church”? sound a little less odd? Next #3, the temptations and failures of not building church upon the foundation of individual persons-people.
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