- Jesus is the head of it (Mat 21:42)
- People get added to it and it is like a family (Ephesians 2:12-19)
- Jesus is the establisher of the foundation (goals and intent), foreseen by prophets, implemented by people with apostolic callings (Ephesians 2:20)
- The people that make up the group are all equally wedge into it together (Ephesians 2:21)
There seems to be a metaphor here that the church (people) is growing up, together, and the metaphor is that we are parts of this building that is being constructed. This is cool to me for two reasons: (1) we can see here how someone might miss the metaphor bit and think an actual building IS the church - which possibly explains how we mistakenly say things like "I am heading to the church." If you are part of the church, then that sentence perpetuates a non-relational expectation that "church" is about a building where we go, and (2) constructing a building requires a plan at the minimum, with rooms built to serve different purposes. Imagine an entire house of bathrooms. That is ridiculous. And so it is important that the one constructing the building be in charge of what room get built where. Could you imagine a bathroom deciding it was a kitchen? Recall the expression, don't poop where you eat?
Now it is your turn. And remember... we are only getting started, and there will be a million other topics! But this is a foundational one. Do you have thoughts on these scriptures? Do you have other scriptures that the Holy Spirit is showing you that are helping to define church community? Add a comment and be ready to discuss?
3 comments:
oh man, I forgot an interesting point: Did you realize that the first-century church (the church as Jesus established it, and as is recorded in the NT)didn't even have a single public meeting space (i.e. a church building) for the first 400 years of Christianity!? In the most critical years of our faith, people met in homes! So, it COULDN'T have been about buildings! Future discussion: how would meeting in a home differ from "services" in a church building? (don't answer this rabbit trail now... we will tackle it later! Stay on target!)
hey steve...what book have you been reading that has most recently been a springboard for this topic? we've been reading some related stuff; so i am curious :)) amy
The book is Pagan Christianity but the title is a bit sensationalistic. When the author says "Pagan" they are refering to historically Greco-Roman cultural influences as the foundation of many historical partices found in the church today (starting at around 400 BC anad forward.)
I am definitely not pimping the book. While I don't really imagine that one could argue too much with the history presented in the book, there is still room for coming to different healthy conclusions about how the ideas inspire different community expressions.
I will give you one example from the book. Take for example the issue of communion presented in the book. Some folks don't do communion today so they might not find this topic initially engaging. Moreover, the most likely reason that people don't identify with the communion experience is in the manner it is presented today. Today, it is like lining up to take a shot of juice and a cracker (like you are in a line getting vaccinated or something.) In the first-century, it was called a "love feast." They had the bread and wine, told stories about what the Lord was doing in their lives (the "remembrances") and shared the experience together corporately. There was not an MC up front solumnly quoting "...in the night He was betrayed, Jesus took the cup saying..." and people likely didn't sit around pondering their sins and standing in rows having what is fundamentally an individual private, silent, quiet prayerful experience. Corporate also didn't mean that everyone took their thimbals of jiuce back to their seats and they all drank the coolaid at the same time. It was far more interactive and personal than that.
So, in response to that, rather than simply tell people, "Hey, I think remembering Jesus through a love feast together is important and we should all be doing it," I am think that it would be good to take a look at what went on in the early church, gleaning it's values and contrasting that with how it is done today. If how it is done today support the same values, then very cool. If how it is done today competes with those values, then people need to start to pray and consider what could come of taking the time to experience a more engaging communion expression of Christian community.
That is just one example. There are many more.
But to veer from any dogma, as an example, I feel less and less like communion is about wine and bread, and more about what comes from having a share experience supported by tangible reminders (metaphors.) If the form of communion is void of a real shared love feast filled with remembering, then I don't care how much wine or bread is present. So, this is definitely not about passing along a new dogma. It is about being in search of *what* Jesus wanted from the shared community experience as much as *that* we have an experience of community, in general.
Again, this is only one example, and a far deficient one since it is coming out like a monologue.
My hope is that bigger topics like "Did the Lord intend for the Church (us) to all opperate in (1) only giftings, or as well in (2) the five fold ministries? Or where the five fold ministries only really inteded for professional ministers? When Paul writes in I Cor 14 about how to operate in the gifts and ministries, was he thinking annecdotally (a 30 second prophetic word on a sunday morning from time to time) or did he expect that the gifts and ministries were happening in the Church (us, not a building) and were in fact key elements of the shared community experience?" I don't know yet, but I think this is important stuff. So this will be a place to talk about it.
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