The excerpt below is from Beyond Church by Steve Simms. It’s an easy read, highlighting the meaning and purpose of ekklesia, with emphasis on practical guidelines on how to do life together.
“He (Jesus Christ) is the head of the body, the ekklesia; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy.” Colossians 1:18
As we have seen, the key to ekklesia is supernatural revelation from God – this is the rock that Jesus refers to in Matthew 16. To move beyond church and into the experience of ekklesia, we need to continually cultivate and create an environment where people can experience God’s revelation and then freely share what God has shown them.
The transformation from church into God’s glorious ekklesia is gradual – “from glory to glory” – step by step. It is a process of coming out of our comfort zones and out of our worldly methods of human organization and control. It is also the ever increasing movement into and submission to God’s light – His supernatural revelation.
However, too often we have settled into familiarity and tradition and have camped out there, not wanting to grow forward with the living God. We have acted like the rebellious Israelites in the desert who didn’t want to move forward when God wanted them to follow His cloud by day and fire by night. Together these two quotes help to make that point:
“Ekklesia is a compound Greek term. The prepositional prefix ek means out and kales means to call, thus the compound word means called out or a called-out group or an assembly.” – Sujit Mani
“There is no such thing as a call from God that is not a call out of the world. The church is ekklesia. In the divine intention there is no klesia which lacks the ek.” – Watchman Nee
So how can we answer God’s call out of our comfort zones? It is not easy. Jesus put it this way: “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me.'” – Matthew 16:24
To experience ekklesia, we have to deny ourselves. To deny self doesn’t mean to defeat yourself. Many people deny God, but they don’t defeat Him. No. To deny yourself means to ignore yourself – to set aside your own feelings and desires and to flow with God instead, whether to or not.
To take up your cross means to freely embrace your own execution your own death. It moves beyond ignoring your emotions and desires for a little while and into freely accepting the death of your feelings and desires.
Follow Me means much more than making a mental ascent to the doctrinal truths about Christ. It means to literally follow and obey His present day promptings, leadings, and/or nudgings in your heart, whether you want to or not. It also means to obey and be faithful to the commands in the Bible and not to your own will.
Ekklesia requires us to follow Jesus not just with our verbal allegiance, but also in the way that we live our day to day lives. Jesus said: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” – John 5:19
In order to experience ekklesia, we need to follow Jesus in the same way that He followed the Father being continually aware of His will and obeying His will instead of our own. That’s why ekklesia requires revelation. It is easy to follow our own agendas and programs. We need the Holy Spirit to show us where we are stuck on our own way.
John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, told us how to “prepare the way of the Lord.” John the Baptist said: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30) That’s why James, the half-brother of Jesus said: “God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble.” (James 4:6)
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This is the second excerpt from Bob Emery’s encouraging book Called to Rebuild. You can read a description and check out the first excerpt here. Want more information about Bob, click here. The excerpt below has been edited.
The question that many people wrestle with is, if it’s God’s eternal purpose and his intense desire to see the church shining like a bright lampstand, lifting up Jesus for the world to see, then why can it be such an arduous, grueling challenge to find and be a part of such a church? After all, if we’re clear on what God is after, and if we’ve committed our hearts to him, then getting there from where we are, with his help, should be a simple, straight shot, right? Maybe a few bends and turns in the road, but since we have the roadmap, possibly in a few weeks, or months, or even a year, we should be having the kind of church experience that God has always wanted for us to have, right?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way.
Praise God, however, for the current move of his Spirit we are beginning to see in this country. Praise God that he continues to touch people’s lives. Praise God for the revolutionaries Barna has identified who are not satisfied with the status quo and are doing something about it. Praise God for those who are seeking, questioning, and leaving the captivity of dead institutions in search of something more.
But the question needs to be raised: where is this search for something more leading people? As I pointed out at the beginning of this book, Barna’s findings indicate that if you love the Lord and are searching for something more, and you do take that step to leave the institutional church, you’ll probably find yourself in one of several situations. If you are fortunate, you’ll find some other like-minded souls who are also interested in trying to figure out what this thing called “church” is really supposed to be that you can fellowship with. Maybe you’ll find a house church or home group fellowship. Or, maybe you’ll get involved, as many do, in some virtual, online church, or a family unit fellowship in order to find more fulfillment in the Christian experience.
All of these things can play a part in the recovery of what God wants to bring about among his people, but do any of them, by themselves, fully restore the church to its original intention? We’ve looked at what God wanted to do in restoring his people from their captivity in the Old Testament. All of this was a picture for us, a roadmap as it were, for how we might look to the Lord and the Scriptures for guidance out of the current fallen situation of Christianity today and reunite with the heart and eternal of God to restore the church to what he has always intended for purpose it to be.
Though there is the aspect of the church that is universal-comprising all the members of the body of Christ-we see clearly throughout the New Testament writings, and especially from the first chapter of Revelation, that the church is also local. God saw a lampstand in each of the seven cities of Asia to whom this letter containing the Revelation was sent. He saw a lampstand in Ephesus, in Smyrna, in Pergamum, in Thyatira, in Sardis, in Philadelphia, and in Laodicea.
So, the restoration of the church has a very practical and local application. God wants to have a bright, shining lampstand where Christ is exalted in every place. In order to have that, we need to seek God and make ourselves available to him to use us to help restore local expressions of the church.
It’s seeing God restore the church to what it ought to be, in your location; in the place in which you live! This is a challenge! This is a high calling. It may even seem like an impossible calling, but should that be surprising? If you’ll remember, that’s the same way the remnant felt when they were faced with rebuilding the temple in their day. To go this route, it will take a commitment by a group of people to Christ and to others with a common vision. And it will take time. But who ever said it was going to be easy?
There are no pat and easy answers for those desiring to see and be a part of the restoration of God’s house and want to know: How do we start? Where do we go? What do we do? Who can help us? How can we find others in our location with the same heart?
The most solid recommendation I can give you would be that if anything in this book has touched or challenged you, begin by bringing those things to the Lord yourself and asking him to make them real in your life. Then seek out others to fellowship with, with whom you can share and discuss what God is showing you. Ask him to lead you to others with whom you can pray and seek the Lord together about these things.
Beyond that, be assured that there are many others out there who are asking the same questions. There are even websites out there dedicated to networking and linking like-minded Christians together who have a heart for the house of God and the things discussed in this book. Some even have directories where you can find other believers with similar interests in your area.
God is sovereign. He has always been the initiator. He is the one who will prepare and raise up the Zerubbabels of today who he will use to guide and lead others in the way of restoration. He is also the one who will gather the people and form the new wineskins that will contain the new wine he wants to pour out when old structures become too rigid and hardened (Mark 2: 21,22).
From beginning to end, the work of restoration is God’s work. But as we have seen, it is also a work that not all of God’s people will choose to be part of. Throughout the generations, he has had his remnant. In the end. he will get all the glory. God’s work begins, continues, and will find its completion as Jesus is exalted, revealed, and made manifest. He is the head of his church, which is his body.
The challenge, therefore, remains for the remnant of this generation. Are you one of those who see the condition of the church today in much the same way as the people of God in the Babylonian captivity saw the house of God in Jerusalem lying in waste more than 2,500 years ago? Are you one of those willing to do something about it?
God has given us the story of Ezra and the other books of the Bible concerning the returning remnant to encourage us and to show us the way back. May those of you who have read this book not only hear the call to rebuild as loudly and as clearly as they did in the days when Cyrus issued his proclamation and invitation, but may you be like those whose spirits were stirred up and join with others to act in response to that call.
“Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel.” EZRA 1:3
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Called to Rebuild is another great book from Bob Emery. Bob compares the remnant, that returned to Jerusalem after 70 years in captivity, to today’s remnant who have a heart to rebuild and see the true church restored. This is the first of two excerpts. Want more information about Bob, click here. You can read the second excerpt here.
Another reason the building stopped was that the people had come to the conclusion that the task God had called them to was utterly impossible. Haggai 1:7, 8 reads, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Consider your ways!’ ‘Go up to the mountains, bring wood and rebuild the temple, that I may be pleased with it and be glorified.’ says the Lord.”
As we step back and try to put the rebuilding of the temple in perspective by looking at it from the point of view of those who returned, we can easily see that the remnant could have had the overwhelming sense that what God had called them to do was just beyond their capacity to perform. God had not just called them to return to Jerusalem to build a temple, but they were called to rebuild Solomon’s temple. We read in 1 Kings chapter five that when Solomon built his temple, it took almost 185,000 laborers seven years to complete it and another 13 years to finish the royal palace and surrounding buildings. That doesn’t even take into account all the effort and expense David put into gathering all the materials, drawing up the plans, and getting everything ready before Solomon began.
By contrast, look at the remnant. They were only about 50,000 in number. They had been in captivity. They didn’t have the special tools, skills, or experience to do such a work. There were significantly less people involved in the work, fewer resources, and enemies all around harassing them and trying to get them to stop. And when they compared what they were doing with the former glory of Solomon’s temple and were told “to go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple,” their reaction was probably, “Yea, right!”
But is it any different today? Doesn’t living the Christian life or trying to recover a first-century type church experience sometimes seem just as impossible as the task of rebuilding Solomon’s temple must have seemed to the remnant?
The fact is that the Christian life is a life that is impossible to live. There is only one person in the universe capable of living it, and that is Jesus Christ himself. Consider these standards of Christian living:
-When your enemy strikes you turn the other cheek. -Give thanks in all things. -Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. -Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. -Wives submit to your husbands. -Be angry, but don’t sin.
When people reach the point that they really see that what God is calling them to do is something that is impossible and unattainable, they usually respond in one of two ways. First, they might try harder. Those are the ones who think that if they resolve to pray more, fast more, give more, study more, go to more meetings, or join more committees that they might just be able to do all that God is asking of them. The second choice is to conclude that since what is being required is impossible, why not just stand back and let God do it all? Just quit, give up, withdraw from any Christian activity and just wait for God to supernaturally show up. Many people come to this point and conclude that the Christian life just doesn’t work. In the case of the remnant, some may have concluded that the same God who said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, could also say, “Let there be a temple,” and there would be a temple! In principle, the second response for what to do in the face of an impossible task is probably closer to the answer than the first, but it can also lead to stagnation or doing nothing, which it did in their case. It took the prophet Zechariah to reveal the principle by which God works in relation to his people and put things in the proper perspective:
This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts. “What are you great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain; and he will bring forth the top stone with shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!’ Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying: “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands shall also finish it.” ZECHARIAH 4:6-9
If we read this carefully, we will see that the problem of removing the mountain (the seemingly impossible task of completing and rebuilding the temple) would be accomplished by the Spirit. But immediately after reading that, we see that it would also be accomplished through the hand of Zerubbabel. God doesn’t expect us to overcome any impossible problem by ourselves. But neither is he going to do it all by himself without our participation. God will work, but he also wants to work with us. God’s work is a work by the Spirit, using our hands.
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This is a bit different for me. I just finished The Book of Acts by Dr. Russell Welch. Dr. Welch argues that Acts is a blueprint for what the church should look like, not just a history book. However, if you are looking for how these truths get integrated into relational gatherings in practical ways, it falls a bit short. I decided not to post an excerpt from his book but I am posting this awesome article I found about children being participants in relational gatherings.
The house church is a womb for generational blessing, where spiritual inheritance is passed not through programs, but through presence. Keeping children with their parents under the same Word is a divine safeguard. Proverbs 22:6 commands us to “train up a child in the way he should go,” not outsource that training to systems that may not carry the heart of the Father.
In the house church, children are not exposed to worldly corruption or spiritual abuse – they are covered. Psalm 91:4 declares, “His truth shall be your shield and buckler.” The Word becomes a fortress around the family, guarding hearts and minds from the schemes of the enemy.
The enemy has long targeted children – through Pharaoh, through Herod, and now through modern culture. But God is raising up homes like Goshen, places of protection and glory. In Exodus 12, the blood was applied to the doorposts of homes – not temples – and the angel of death passed over.
Today, the house church is a place where the blood of Jesus is honored, and the enemy cannot trespass. It is a place where healing flows, identity is restored, and trauma is broken off by the power of the Cross.
Sexual abuse and manipulation often thrive in environments where children are isolated, silenced, or treated as second-class. But in the house church, they are seen, heard, and valued. Jesus placed a child in the midst of His disciples and said, “Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me” (Matthew 18:5).
This is not sentiment – it’s strategy. When children are honored in the Spirit, the enemy loses his grip. The house church becomes a place of safety, not secrecy.
Fellowship as a family is not just beautiful – it’s powerful. Psalm 133 says, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity… for there the Lord commands the blessing.”
That blessing flows through generations when families are knit together in Christ. The house church is not a downgrade – it’s an upgrade. It is where the oil of intimacy flows, where sons and daughters prophesy, and where the Spirit of Elijah prepares the way for the Lord.
Let us reject the spirit of religion and embrace the Spirit of adoption (Romans 8:15). Let us build homes that host His glory, raise up warriors from the womb, and disciple not just individuals – but entire households.
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15). The house church is not just a model – it’s a movement. And it’s time to gather the family, apply the Word, and watch heaven invade our homes.
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I really enjoyed Bob Emery’s newest book, House Church and would recommend it. I have included a short excerpt below, addressing an issue that is one of the hardest to overcome when doing life together. Bob also includes a short but brilliant chapter addressing Paul’s writing concerning women in 1 Corinthians 14. If you’re interested in knowing what is happening in Iran and other Muslim countries, Bob has included some encouraging case studies. Want more information about Bob, click here.
Imagine that you were a member of the tribe of Judah. You lived a short distance away from Jerusalem. During the months leading up to one of the feasts, you and your family had been busy working hard to produce olive oil. You had labored diligently watering, fertilizing, and pruning your olive trees. Finally, when the olives had ripened, you shook the trees or beat the branches with a stick to cause the berries to fall to the ground. Then you collected the ripe olives. Some were eaten with meals and enjoyed fresh; others were pressed into oil to use for cooking, fueling lamps, providing anointing oil, or dressing wounds. At feast time you would collect the choicest of the berries and the best of the oil, to bring to Jerusalem to offer to the Lord, and to bless the Lord for all that he had given you from the land of your inheritance.
As you saw other pilgrims enter the city, each carried with them the work of their hands as well. You spot some old friends from the tribes that lived on the coast. After embracing and exchanging greetings, your friends reached in their sacks and pulled from them the biggest, finest pomegranates you had ever seen. You rejoiced together at what a wonderful harvest the Lord your God had given in the land. Then you pulled from your own sack a handful of the largest, blackest olive berries they had ever seen. You gave a handful to your friends to eat, and once again, you all praised God for the bountiful harvest he had given you.
One by one, pilgrims entered the city. Pairs of men with poles running from one’s shoulder to the other carried large, beautiful clusters of grapes; others had carts with huge sheaves of golden wheat; others brought jars of the finest honey; still others came with metal instruments forged from the minerals that had been mined from the mountains.
As everyone came together and witnessed the bountiful provision that God had given to each one, they blessed God, offered to him the finest of the fruits, and rejoiced with one another for the wonderful land that God had given them.
Now, how does this apply to us today? In the Old Testament, God gave the Jews a physical land for their inheritance. But this was just a picture for us. The good land, flowing with milk and honey, was only a picture of the abundance of our spiritual inheritance in Christ. He wants to be our everything to enjoy. He also gave the Israelites a physical temple. Their physical temple made of stone, where the glory of God dwelt, was also a picture for how we, believers in Christ, are now the real temple with the Spirit of God dwelling in us. Those festivals were also a picture. This joyous, festive scene where people all came together to display the abundance of the good land they had been given is also a picture of what a church meeting should look like!
Back to 1 Corinthians 14:26: “What is the outcome then, brothers and sisters? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. All things are to be done for edification.”
As Christians, Christ is our good land. Every day we need to work the land, spend time with Christ, and enjoy Him. Then, select from our finest experiences with him and bring those to the meetings of the church to share with our brothers and sisters. That could be a testimony, a song, a passage of Scripture, some revelation of Christ that you have received. God wants us to bring the riches that we have found in Christ to the meetings and celebrate, as it were, a great feast with our brothers and sisters-feeding together on the riches of Christ and what he has done in each of our lives. As each one shares what God has given to them, the whole body is edified and will rejoice, Christ will be lifted up, and we will all praise God for such a rich Christ that we have!
In the Old Testament, each family in each tribe was given a portion of the land to enjoy. But if they didn’t work the land, they’d have nothing to show for it, and they would have to come to the feasts empty-handed. If you want to have good house-church meetings, you’ll need to work the land too, so that you will have something of Christ to bring to the meetings to encourage the others. It could be very simple-it doesn’t need to be a long message. Something as simple as, “This morning the Lord touched my heart with the words of a song, and I’d like to share it with you (or have the group sing it together).” Or “I lost my keys today and couldn’t find them. Finally, I prayed and immediately the Lord showed me where they were.” Any experience or revelation of Christ you have, that’s meeting material, so you won’t show up empty-handed.
As glorious as this might sound, it’s still much harder to meet this way than to go to a traditional church meeting on Sunday morning, where the pastor preaches, and the program is set. It’s much easier to watch a performance and let a strong personality take charge. Going to those kinds of meetings, all you must do is show up. There’s no need for you to “work the land” or spend any time with the Lord preparing for what He might have you bring to encourage your brothers and sisters. In the kinds of meetings that took place in the first century, however, everyone was responsible for bringing something of Christ to make the meetings rich.
From my own experience as a Christian, I have learned that one can only grow so much (spiritually) by sitting week after week, month after month, year after year listening to others. The next stage of growth takes place when you are given some responsibility. Say that you were among a group of Christians and asked by someone to lead a Bible study the next week. What might your first reaction be? Panic! “What am I going to say? What am I going to teach?” But your next reaction would be, “I need to pray; I need to spend time with the Lord, so I will have something meaningful to give.” You don’t want to come empty-handed. Responsibility drives you to the Lord, which causes you to spend time with him, receive from him, and have something to share with others. Out of these kinds of experiences, deeper spiritual growth and stronger spiritual disciplines will manifest themselves in your life.
Here is a good test by which to gauge whether you are attending a first-century style church meetings or not: Next time you “go to church,” ask yourself this: Am I going to a meeting to be a passive spectator at a performance? Or am I going to be a participant?
Using soccer as an analogy, are you going to sit in the stands with 50,000 other spectators to cheer the performance of 22 players on the field? Or are you going to play in the game? First-century style meetings were filled with players, not spectators. Each one had an opportunity to participate and contribute. In this way, Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, would be glorified through the proper working of each member of his body, and his multi-faceted riches would be revealed.
Moving church meetings back into the homes, where they belong, is the only way Christians of the 21st century can possibly experience what the early Christians understood as “church.”
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This is another excerpt from The Other Half of Church by Jim Wilder & Michel Hendricks. This book is not your typical house church book but it is highly recommended. You can get a taste by reading the excerpt below. You can read the first excerpt on Joy here.
Whole-brained Christianity makes full use of truth and relationship. Half-brained Christianity parks on the truth and leaves the relational soil untended.
Jesus wants a church with healthy soil that keeps relationships in the center. Each of the four ingredients of healthy soil is relational. Joy is what I feel when my brain senses that you are happy to be with me. Hesed is our family attachment of joyful love. Group identity is our corporate map of who we are and how we act as children of the living God. Our culture of correction leaves no man or woman behind. When someone forgets who they are, we bring them back gently to their true self. Healthy soil is relational through and through.
By building a foundation of relational joy, love, and identity, we create an environment where we naturally and regularly witness transformation. We expect radical change when people join our community. As we reintroduce right-brain practices into our discipleship-along with the traditional left-brain spiritual disciplines we are using the full-brain power that God gave us to form our character. The Great Commission displaces the great omission as our people learn to obey Jesus with heart and mind. All of us eagerly accept correction when we stop acting like ourselves.
People choose to be involved in a particular Christian community for many reasons. The primary attraction of a full-brained community is our joy and love. People might not remark, “Their teaching is so good.” “I love the music there.” “That pastor is such a good teacher.” Instead, they might say, “These people love each other so much.” “This room is filled with joy.” “I want to be like them.” Love is the centerpiece of everything a full-brained church does. A church planted in rich relational soil may be less visually stimulating than other churches, but it is relationally stimulating. Being stimulated by love and joy is more important than being stimulated by other factors.
Unlike most Christian leaders, the relational pastor intentionally stays small. People are not impressed by this pastor, except by his humility and maturity. A full-brained community is impressed by Jesus alone and sees any attempt to magnify another person as an opportunity to offer a gentle rebuke. In a healthy church, people talk about Jesus all the time. They seldom talk about the pastor, and this is as it should be. Jesus is large and in charge. The pastor is but one of many people in a community where all faithfully complete the assignments Jesus gave them.
Pastors and other leaders stay small and act like trainers-laser focused on creating a relational environment that fosters transformation. Instead of looking only at attendance, giving, or other numbers, they also focus intently on bringing their people to maturity.
Much has been written of the exploits of the heroes of World War II, but what do you know about the drill sergeants who trained them in boot camp? Who was Beethoven’s childhood piano teacher? Who first instructed Serena Williams how to hit a tennis ball? Who taught Lionel Messi to dribble a soccer ball? Trainers are seldom famous. A relational pastor remains largely unknown outside the church. His flock is thankful for the maturity they are developing. Pastors who refuse to be magnified know that their example will encourage the next generation of pastors to stay small-just like Jesus taught.
We can mistake the inflated pastor for a great leader if we believe the world’s definition of greatness. Jesus operates under a different rubric. We find Him adjusting the disciples’ definition when He catches them arguing about who is the greatest. The disciples are debating about which of them would be the biggest winner in the kingdom of heaven. They no doubt have images in their minds of what that looked like, but Jesus flips their picture upside down.
Jesus corrects the disciples by saying, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35 ESV). Apparently, the disciples cannot accept this adjustment. It was too big of a stretch. Jesus must repeat His upside-down definition several times.
On another occasion Jesus calls a little child, placing the child in the middle of the disciples. The men probably looked at each other and wondered what Jesus was doing. With the child standing in the middle He explains, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3-4). Jesus gives them a visual picture of a small child and basically says, “This is what greatness looks like.” He also brings group identity into the picture. We stop acting like members of God’s kingdom when we inflate ourselves and seek to be great.
Unfortunately, we often build and arrange our churches in ways that can magnify the leader. During many services, the church leader is elevated, standing above the crowd. Do families act like this? We hang large screens above the stage to magnify their face as the Teacher. Their enormous image looms above us as we listen to them disperse wisdom. Do families act like this? The use of video magnification in a church may be necessary, but pastors should simultaneously be modeling “image shrinkification” more often. Leaders are not exempt from Jesus’ upside-down definition of greatness. We, pastors, should be willing to rethink what we do and why we do it.
Emotionally mature leaders always keep relationships more important than ministry. They never sacrifice their congregation’s hesed attachments in order to “do great things.” The horse remains firmly in front of the cart, and every task or ministry they perform from abundant hesed.
A whole-brained church releases transformed disciples into the world like cottonwood seeds in the Colorado wind. Invigorated disciples plant new life in the culture wherever they land. Jesus dispersed His disciples around the world after training them for three years. These disciples and their spiritual descendants changed the fabric of the world. Likewise, we pastors do not focus on changing the world ourselves. Instead, we are trainers who focus on building Christlike character into our people. If we do our job well, our people will change the world.
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Bursting Wineskins is a short (75 page) book by Mack Cunningham describing his search for a more Biblical Church life. The excerpt below reflects on the question of whether you are needed or not.
There is a final important passage of Scripture that has much to say about how God wants Christ’s church to function on this earth. It is found in 1 Corinthians 12:12-26. Here is the text.
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”
Verses 12 and 13 emphasize that there is only one body because we have all been baptized into Christ by the same Holy Spirit. It has already been noted how far we have strayed from this heavenly reality.
But in spite of this oneness, there are different parts to this body. Verses 14 to 19 declare this important truth. This diversity was intended by God to create an important aspect of interdependence on each other in the body of Christ because the body of Christ needs different parts in order to effectively carry out multiple tasks. As vs. 17 states, ‘If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of smelling?’ Thus vs. 19 concludes, ‘If all were a single member, where would the body be?’ Obviously, it would not be able to function as it should. Vs. 22 goes even further when it states that ‘the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are necessary’.
But let us be frank about modern church life. Do we feel indispensable to what goes on in our local assembly, or could the whole organization get along fine without us? Who would run the sound system and coordinate the overheads? Who would staff the Sunday school classes? Who would organize and show up for a church building workday? Do these activities seem indispensable to you? There is only one very important contribution that each believer makes in most local churches and that is their tithe. Without regular tithing, a full-time staff and maintenance of a building could not be supported. This would put an end to that local church’s existence.
Congregations are becoming increasingly unstable as families choose where to attend depending on personal need fulfillment. This transience is partly due to the modern church’s structure that communicates they want you to keep showing up but really don’t have any dire need of you, just your tithe. Any need for each other is usually generated by friendships that are formed and social life that is shared among members. To actually value and rely on another believer’s spiritual qualities and gifts is rare. Unity in the body of Christ has been seriously undermined by one part of the body communicating to another part, in effect, ‘I have no need of you’ (vs. 21).
There must be something more that each believer is to contribute to the body that makes each one very necessary. Verses 21 through 26 point out that there is a problem with human perception when it comes to how important each part of the body is. Those we see as ‘weaker’ are indispensable. They are more important than we naturally think. Therefore, those we deem less honorable are to be honored more than those we would naturally give more honor to. This is not a psychological ploy to make everybody feel better about themselves. Nor is it sociological manipulation to maintain equanimity. It is wise counsel given to congregations to combat our natural ways of evaluating people and tune into the spiritual value that each believer possesses. Unfortunately, modern church life has ignored this counsel and heaps praise on those who already are ‘more honored’-typically these are pastors and worship leaders. I suppose one could try to give more honor to the ‘laity, but it would seem trite to heap praise on someone for their faithfulness in passing out bulletins.
The last two verses (25 & 26) emphasize how connected each part of the body of Christ is to all the other parts. We are to show the same care for one another. When one suffers, we all suffer. When one is honored, we all rejoice together. Frankly, my own sense of connection to other believers varies, depending on how involved I am with them. It could be that this is another time when the phrase ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ applies. There is a spiritual connectivity that exists in Christ’s universal church that we are dimly aware of in our earthly church life.
Our natural tendencies as to how we evaluate people and engage with them are to be changed in light of who we now are in Christ. It is very challenging to see our local fellowship as actual members of the body of Christ and not just a social gathering. We gravitate to, and spend time with, those we like or admire with little thought of others. And we don’t see the hidden giftedness in most of our fellow believers because we are functioning in a church structure that inhibits our spiritual growth and expression.
Our appreciation of, and how we value, other believers would certainly increase as we saw their spiritual giftedness in action. We would look afresh at others if we saw the Holy Spirit impact the church through them. Up to this point I have focused on how we meet together. One can hopefully see how important a ‘testimony time’ is when we gather. We can share how the Holy Spirit has been working through us and impacting us personally during the week. This kind of sharing certainly is important in gaining insight into other believers and increasing our appreciation of them. But this kind of sharing rarely takes place in mid-week meetings, let alone any Sunday service.
But some giftedness is manifest outside the local gatherings in the communal activities we have and the secular activities we are involved in. It is there that the Holy Spirit does most of His work through us. But if we don’t get involved with other believers outside our gathering together, we will never see their spiritual side in action. That is why our Kingdom life together has to be more than a series of meetings. Time must be invested in order to foster intimate relationships. But the individualistic and self-centered lifestyles of the modern church do not foster development of intimate relationships.
Let me sum up the line of reasoning I have put forth in this chapter. Each believer in Christ has value and has an indispensable function in the church. But most believers don’t recognize this value in themselves, let alone others. There are three main reasons this is the case. First, there is very little opportunity for giftedness to be demonstrated in the modern church system. Second, no time is allowed for saints to give testimonies of what the Holy Spirit has been doing in their lives or share any edifying verses from scripture. And third, our individual lifestyles minimize the time we need to get together outside the normal meetings in order to get to know one another. Hopefully, it is becoming clearer to my reader that this is not something that can be corrected by trying harder or being more aware. There needs to be a structural change in how we fundamentally ‘do church’ and prioritize our personal lives in order to address these kinds of problems.
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I took a chance when I purchased The Other Half of Church by Jim Wilder & Michel Hendricks, but how often can you get advice from a Neurotheologian? This book is terrific and I would recommend it to everyone. Below is an excerpt about the benefits of joy. I posted a second excerpt that you can read here.
As I studied more about the role of joy in spiritual formation, I saw the benefits piling up. When Jim told me that he discovered the importance of joy and brought it to his counseling practice, he saw drastic changes in the lives of his patients. His clinic treated difficult cases that other clinics and churches had given up on, and most patients arrived to their first session in a state of severely low joy. Previously, the clinic would need to hospitalize a large percentage of these patients during their treatment. Their counseling sessions would send them into such deep trauma that they could no longer function. Jim and the other therapists had come to accept that hospitalization was a normal part of recovery.
Once the clinic started focusing on building patients’ joy before treating their trauma, hospitalization rates plummeted to almost zero. They were filling up their clients’ gas tanks with joy fuel before beginning the heavy work of trauma recovery. Trying to do emotionally taxing work with an empty tank is like running a marathon without having eaten food for a month. Eventually your body will shut down for lack of energy. Jim’s patients would emotionally collapse. We run the same danger in our churches and families when we do not build our joy together as a part of ministry. We eventually drain our tanks and run on empty.
Joy helps us regulate our emotions and endure suffering. Jesus refused to relinquish joy in the midst of His suffering on the cross. When we are able to stay relationally connected to others and God, we experience joy while we suffer. Joy does not remove our pain, but it gives us the strength to endure. Remember that joy is relational, so “joy in suffering” means that God and our community are glad to be with us in our distress. They do not allow us to suffer alone. We are able to bear our suffering like Jesus, “who for the joy set before Him endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2 NASB).
Contrary to what some preachers say in their sermons on Jesus’ “seven last words,” He never lost touch of His Father’s face shining on Him as He was tortured and humiliated. “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). He could see through the angry faces in the crowd to the kind and steady gaze of His Father. His joy sustained Him. The author of Hebrews exhorts us to handle our suffering the same way, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith” (12:2 NASB). Jesus’ face helps us persevere through the pain of life.
It is important to remember that joy is not strictly an emotion. We might refer to it as a supra-emotion because it can go on top of and connect with other emotions. For example, if I lose my job, this is usually not considered a joyful occasion. Instead, I am probably feeling some combination of sadness, fear, and anger. However, when I experience these unpleasant emotions and can simultaneously feel that God is with me, I have added joy into the mix. If I have close friends who are also happy to be with me in my loss, my joy magnifies even more. Now I’m feeling sad and joyful. Fearful and joyful. Angry and joyful. Joy does not replace the unpleasant emotions; instead it combines with my emotions to keep me relationally connected in distress.
The importance of joy to our brain highlights the fact that we must suffer in community. We were not meant to suffer alone. We need to lean on God and on our people in times of distress. We naturally do this when a family member dies. Everyone comes together in order to share the sadness. We tell stories about the deceased. We eat together. We sit in silence. We are joyful (not happy) because we want to suffer together. This is the definition of joy: I want to be with you. Joy is relational in its essence.
Joy is the foundation for a secure bond with God. When I trust that God is happy to be with me’ and is smiling at me, this joy naturally removes fear from the relationship. A goal we have in our bond with God is to nurture a loving relationship until it has no fear. One of Jesus’ disciples explains it well: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). Joy is the path to a fearless love for God.
Our identity is built and formed by joy-bonded relationships. The identity center in our brain grows in response to joy, which helps us act like ourselves in all situations. In a performance-based relationship or community, our identity becomes distorted because we feel the need to perform. When we put on a pretend self, our joy starts decreasing. We can build joy only with our true self. When churches foster a performance-based environment that encourages us to simply put on a happy face when we are suffering, it will quickly run out of joy.
I have already mentioned that joy helps us experience God’s presence in our bodies. I could keep listing more benefits, but let me quote a book Jim coauthored:
“When we are the sparkle in someone’s eyes, their face lights up with a smile when they see us. We feel joy. From the moment we are born, joy shapes the chemistry, structure and growth of our brain. Joy lays the foundation for how well we will handle relationships, emotions, pain and pleasure throughout our lifetime. Joy creates an identity that is stable and consistent over time. Joy gives us the freedom to share our hearts with God and others. Expressing our joyful identity creates space for others to belong. Joy gives us the freedom to live without masks because, in spite of our weaknesses, we know we are loved. We are not afraid of our vulnerabilities or exposure. Joy gives us the freedom from fear to live from the heart Jesus gave us. We discover increasing delight in becoming the people God knew we could be.”
God designed us to live on a rich diet of joy-filled relationships. Communities that take joy building seriously will experience all of the benefits listed above and more. Since joy happens when people are glad to be together, take a moment to remember your own experience in joyful groups. Have you seen any of these benefits of joy?
I feel like I belong I feel more stable when things go wrong It is easier to be myself I feel free to share my heart with God and others
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What does biblical church leadership look like and how does it function? This is probably the number one question I get asked. Biblical Church Leadership by Beresford Job is one of the best books I can recommend concerning this topic. Below is a short excerpt concerning eldership.
We must make an extremely important point now by way of a vital qualification. Although we are seeing that permanent, local church leadership (eldership, as scripture terms it) carries no executive or positional authority, we are not saying that it is therefore merely “a token affair.” As already established, the major default of biblical church leadership, in contrast with leadership as found in most unbiblical churches, is that of invisibility, as opposed to being high profile, and visitors to such a church would not, under normal circumstances, know if there were any elders or not, let alone who they might be. Remember, there are no services led from the front in a biblical church because, as we have seen, all present are free to take part as the Spirit leads them. Indeed, being also home-based, there isn’t even a front for anyone to be upat anyhow, and people are just sitting around in a circle in someone’s sitting room. Furthermore, any elders present just think of themselves as being “one of the lads” and would not for one moment be sitting there thinking in terms of them being a leader. However, this is not to say than any elder present would shrink from taking a lead if any developing situation required it, and as publicly as necessary too.
The fact that church government is consensual does not in the slightest mean that elders do not know when to step forward, or when they must be somewhat more definitive than usual about something, or when it is appropriate for them to give a strong lead concerning anything that is pressing. They would also, in any such circumstances, expect the church to give serious consideration indeed to anything they were saying as a result. As I have already noted, there may be times when there is no consensus over an issue that just cannot be shelved and, in such cases, if the eldership has a clear idea of the necessary way forward, then the church would be strongly advised to go that way. Being also guardians of the church, as we have also already clearly seen, elders have the serious duty of protecting it from attack, from both outside and from within, however the attack might manifest itself. We earlier saw what Paul wrote to Titus concerning elders, that an elder “…must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine, and refute those who oppose it.” (Titus 1:9) The Greek word Paul uses means “to refute in such a way as to put the person to shame.” Indeed, it is appropriate to think of elders, and church leaders more widely, by making a parallel comparison with Jesus being designated both as the Lamb of God and as the Lion of Judah. Wise and godly church leaders fully realise that there is a time to roar, just as there is a time for gentleness. This is the type of wisdom and discretion that (even more-so than the other leadership qualifications) primarily defines them, and stems from exceptional character and sound, godly living.
It is not, therefore, the case that biblical church leadership, such as I am advocating for, is in any way token, or merely some kind of toothless rubber stamp. Elders may not have executive or positional authority, but they have still been recognised by their church as having been fitted by God for the task because of their exemplary Christian walk. They have therefore been recognised precisely because they have proved themselves over the years, by personal example, to those they lead, and that, as I have already stated, gives them something arguably even more powerful than executive authority; and that is moral authority. It is the moral authority of being able to freely and effectively carry people along with them because of the profound trust engendered between all those concerned over the many months and years of close, personal fellowship.
If you’re a good swimmer you might want to take a deep dive into The Pastor Does He Exist? by David H.J. Gay. This book, at about 350 pages is not for everyone. However, if you like church history, this book contains details of how the church fathers introduced error and how future generations exacerbated this error.
The great causality in the corruption of the New Testament system, about which I have been writing, is not church life, or men. Far from it. Most damage has been done to nothing less than the glory of the person of the Lord Christ himself. Really? Yes, indeed!
The grievous consequence of this pastor business, the grievous error in it, is not some technical point of church order and structure. Certainly not. No! Rather it is this: When men invent a third order of minister, when they invent the notion of the pastor, they are in fact – albeit unwittingly – fulfilling a basic instinct ingrained in fallen man; namely, the need of every sinner to find a priest to represent him before God, and a visible priest at that. The widespread existence of a priesthood is no accident. Men and women all over the world, in all sorts of cultures, in every culture, crave a priest. It takes various forms, but the craving is there.
Let me stick with Christendom. How rife is the need for a priest in Christendom! I say ‘need’, but throughout Christendom, men demand, crave, hanker after such an individual. Many think they need a priest for their babies as they enter the world, so that he, with his ministrations, can get these babies right with God, will give them their so-called Christian name by sprinkling drops of water on them, and muttering some hocus-pocus over them. Some of these babies as they grow up, take it further. They need a priest – or even a bishop – to confirm their spiritual status in some way or another, and bestow the Holy Spirit upon them through the laying on of his hands. They need a priest to administer the communion to them. They need a priest to make their marriage ‘proper’. They need a priest to offer them words of comfort when they pass through affliction. They need a priest to absolve them from their sins. They need a priest to tell them the words of God. Above all. they need a priest who will make sure that all is well at their death, and will ensure their safe and certain passage to the realms of bliss. Men hanker after a priest, I say; they crave the comforts of a professional minister and his religious ministrations. At all stages of life, they want a priest to perform the rites of passage for them.
Reader, do not make the mistake of thinking the above paragraph applies only to those churches which openly speak about having a priest. Far, far from it! Many believers and churches are guilty of it in some form or another – not excluding those who are most vehement in their dislike of the word ‘priest’. Of course, most dramatically is it seen in the Roman abomination, with its so-called Vicar of Christ, and his priestly legions. But, distressing to report, the principle is not only a feature of Popery. It is alive and kicking in the evangelical world. Oh, we may have jettisoned the gaudy trappings of medievalism, yes, but we have replaced them with our own Reformed and evangelical trappings and props, right enough!
My point is, by breaking Christ’s ordinances on this subject, evangelicals (including the Reformed) pander to this craving. Ordinary – what a dreadful word – ordinary believers, so they are told, are lay people; they really do need a member of the special class – one of the clerics – to lead and preside over their worship, to minister holy things to and for them.
And it is but a short step from this for the ordinary people to let their clerics ‘do’ their worship on their behalf. Ordinary Christians cannot be expected to learn directly from God’s word, can they? They need the professional expert, the man of God, the Lord’s servant, the Lord’s sent-servant, the Lord’s anointed to teach them, don’t they? They need a professional minister to pray for them, not infrequently to pronounce (if not to bestow – but not, as it should be, to ask) God’s blessing on them as they leave the meeting house. It is not unknown for Reformed or evangelical men to pronounce the aaronic benediction (Num. 6:24-26) upon a congregation at the close of a service, even with uplifted hands, palms facing the congregation – copying Aaron who addressed the people, not God, with this benediction (Num. 6:23). Do such men not fear they might be trespassing on Christ’s prerogative (Luke 24:50)? Or, worse, are they aping him? No man today has this right or power. If 2 Corinthians 13:14 is thought to justify it though it needs proof that Paul was not simply praying there – it was an apostolic blessing. Compare Romans 1:7; 15:13; 16:20,25-27; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 16:23; Galatians 1:3-5; 6:18, for example.
For many ‘ordinary’ believers, in their need, their professional pastor counsels them. In their ignorance, he guides them. In their sin, he intercedes for them. Nothing wrong with this, of course. Except… when the pastor takes the place of Christ. And, not infrequently, he does. Hackles will rise at this, but I say it again. For the ‘ordinary’ believer, too often the visible pastor is more real than the invisible Christ. Yet all these vital ministries belong to Christ. They are properly his, and only his. He is the Pastor of his people. But, once the human priest has got his feet under the table, he will eventually replace the Son of God.
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