Getting serious about the Church

In Jesus’ day, Jewish gatherings were called synagogues—and still are.  The word “synagogue” means literally “where people come together.” But Jesus called His gathering “church” or ecclesia--literally “where people are called together.”   Churches are not there by choice, but by divine command.

The church has certain characteristics which makes it different. First, it is where people love God and each other.  On the night that Jesus held the Last Supper, Philip asked him in to show them the Father in John 14:9.   Jesus answered: ". . .  Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father'.”

God is in Jesus.  When we see Him, we see the Father. But then He goes deeper in 1-17.

"If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever- the Spirit of truth.”God not only lives in Jesus, but He also lives in us through the Holy Spirit. We are vessels of the Spirit, revealing God to each other, and to the world. 

Being vessels of God’s Spirit means that we have a special relationship with each other. We don’t have an individual “hot line” to God, but He lives among all of us together in the fellowship of Believers.  This is why Jesus said in John 13:33-34: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." 

God tells us to love each other because He reveals Himself to us through each other. This isn’t some kind of sappy, sentimental feeling, but a statement that we can’t love God without loving the vessel He chooses to inhabit--namely the church.

A church is a called-out group of believers who are God’s representatives to a particular place on earth. To do this, we must be united in mutual love and concern. We don’t have to like each other, but we must love each other. Families don’t always like each other, but are held together by family ties.  Blood unites in a way affection cannot.  We may not like our children, but even so we would die for them. You may not like your church, either, but you are still called to love it.

 How do we know if we are loving the church?

First, we regularly attend it.  Weekly church attendance isn’t a matter of choice, but an expression of our love of God.  Heb 10:25 tells us “not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near.” We can’t encourage each other if we aren’t there.

Second, we help each other. The earliest  church held all things in common and provided for members in need.  This mutual concern is a hallmark of the church. 

Third, support each other’s spiritual lives.  Ephesians 5:17-21 says "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."

When we come together, each person brings something they learned from God--a song or piece of wisdom—to share with the whole. Each person has a piece of Jesus, and shares that piece with the rest.

In a village in the wine making country of France, they had an annual celebration of the harvest. Every villager would bring his finest wine and put it in a great cask. Then they would take out the plug and they would all share.  One year, they knocked off the plug and out came water. Each villager had decided that instead of putting in their best wine, if they just put in water, no one would notice.  The same happens in churches when the people have no relationship with God, they have nothing to share.

There are three kinds of communities with which we must be involved. The biggest community is the crowd.  A crowd is a large group focused on a central stage or event. Football games, political rallies, and big church services are crowds. The best performers and organizers bring crowds together and control them.

We see crowds in the Bible. The group that came out of Egypt was a crowd following Moses.  Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount before a crowd. A crowd welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem.  In Heaven we see a crowd before the throne.

Loyalty is not required in a crowd—only that you show up. You don’t have to know anyone else in a crowd, and they don’t have to know you. It is a group of strangers who have a common goal.

The opposite of a crowd is a family.  A family is a group intimately connected with each other. You are not a stranger in a family, but you don’t have to prove you belong there. You are there by blood. Your family doesn’t accept you by what you do, but they are stuck with you.  You don’t do anything to be part a family except to commit to each other.  Families don’t exist for any purpose but to exist. They are where we are really known and really know others.

But a local church is neither a crowd, nor is it fully a family. It is something in between.  It is a village or community.  A village is where you meet people who know you and who you know. It is defined by people we greet on a first-name basis.

The crowd will always be with us. Mass media is a form of crowd. The family as been under attack in a culture, but it still survives. The village—the local community—is under even greater attack than the family. The village, or in our case the local church, is the place where witnessing occurs, ministry occurs, and friendships form. It is the breeding ground of faith. Yet this kind of group is rapidly disappearing in our society.

The middle-sized church is dying in America.  Megachurches (crowds) and house churches (families) are thriving, something is missing in both of them. They give us no place to share our stories, songs, and testimonies with others. The middle sized groups—the village churches—can do this. 

This is not meant as a criticism of big churches or house churches. But without a place to meet others on a first-name basis, there is no place to share with people who are not related or connected by common interests. What’s the point of having the gift of teaching if there is no place to teach? What’s the point of being an encourager, if you don’t know anyone to encourage?  What’s the point of being musical if you are not good enough to audition for praise band or choir? How can we develop our gifts if everything is professional?  Professionalism kills ordinary spiritual giftedness, since it does not allow for ordinary people to participate and be noticed.

So how do we get serious about the local church?

First, commit--that means join . You don’t have to agree with every doctrine or decision. Joining a church is a commitment to love a particular group of people and to share their lives. We don’t have to be alike or think alike--we just have to commit to each other.

 Second, encourage the church.  Churches, church people, elders, and pastors are not perfect, and they make lots of mistakes. But criticism discourages people from using their gifts. We need to be free to criticize, but our encouragement should be louder than our criticism.  

Third, submit to the church. Paul says “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ,” Submission is a form of respect. You don’t have to agree with the leaders, but still you must acknowledge that God put them them in charge. 

 
There are many images people use for the church--a body, a temple, a holy nation, a chosen people, an organization, and an organism, just to name a few. My favorite is a rock tumbler. A tumbler is a cylinder used to polish stone.  You put stones in a tumbler along with sand or gravel, then you turn it on let it run for a week or so. These stones repeatedly strike against each other, rubbing each other raw. Then when it is done, the stones inside come out smooth and polished.

The church does the same thing. Prov. 22:17 says “As iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another.”  We polish each other by rubbing each other the wrong way in messy confrontations. Through this process of honest sharing, loving encouragement and open disagreement, we become beautiful, polished Christians. The only way we can fail to get smoother is to jump out of the tumbler.  This is what happens when we break fellowship with each other.   If we want to get serious about getting close to God, we must also get seriously close to each other.  It may hurt to be close to fallible strangers, but it is an absolute necessity for conforming to the image of Christ.