A Church's Most Important Piece Of Furniture (2)

'Then the preacher said the most provocative words that church congregations need to hear and act on today.

The most significant piece of 'furniture' or fitting in this building are: 

the doors through which you will all leave at the end of this service and go out into the world.'

I ended with the above words in my last post.

I'm a bit crabby at the moment. Yes, I know, good Christians are not supposed to get irritable, fractious, fretful, cross, petulant, pettish, crabbed, crotchety, cantankerous, disagreeable, miserable, morose, peppery, edgy, impatient, querulous; etc but I am. 

I think my crabbiness has to do with the fact that the visible, institutional church doesn't get it! But then I have to remember that for many years I didn't get it either until a rude, Dutchman woke me up out of my dogmatic slumber. 

So I have nothing to boast about. None of us does. The church is in such a parlous condition in Australia that none of us has anything to brag about. Australia is also in such an alarming state and the Lord God is its only salvation but it fails to give Him the time of day.

So, what am I talking about? I'm talking about the church which fails to preach in such a way that every area of the WORK and LIFE of the congregation sitting being taught is addressed by the Word of God. Every area! 

Let me give you an example. Tom leaves his church building and on Monday he is at work in a job he hates. It is boring and to him seemingly pointless. He goes to an enlightened church friend and talks about this problem. 

His friend says, 'Maybe this boring job is where God wants you to be for the time being. How can you erect a small sign of God's Kingdom in this place? If you saw your boring job as Kingdom work, what would that do for the way you approach your work?'


Tom decided that he would come to work a quarter of an hour earlier each day and set that time aside to meet any others who were in early. Gradually with this change, he developed stronger relationships with his work colleagues which had all sorts of exciting consequences. 

For example, the others found out he was a Christian which provoked conversations about the Faith; two of them separately asked him if he would pray for various situations in their lives.

This group of workers began then to think about their work practices and how their work situation could be improved. They approached their supervisor about forming a work practices committee to suggest improvements to the running of the business.

Tom asked his church to pray for him at his work. In fact, his Vicar's interest in Tom's request led him to say, 'Could I come to your workplace and see what you're doing?'.

Like music to my ears! The institutional church seeing that it's not all about it and its evangelism programs, or getting every church member to become an evangelist. God is the God of every legitimate part of human living.

The Australian community is not listening to the church because it is not doing its ministry in workplaces, neighbourhoods, mothering networks through its congregants, the little people. And by ministry, I don't just mean trying to get people to come to church! Ministry in these areas is more than that. And it's more than evangelism. Much more.   

'The Church Beyond The Congregation'

I was confronted 30 years ago with a different form of the message contained in this book by James Thwaites (a Pentecostal), and it still faces me today.

Some book titles are arresting and The Church Beyond The Congregation is one of these. However, it is more than just arresting because it is very easy to misunderstand what the book is proposing by simply interpreting its title within our normal categories. It's a creational given that we do this and it's dashed difficult to modify or abandon our settled categories.

I could start by asking, what is the Church? Such a simple question but it is easy to get the answer wrong according to New Testament (NT) terms.

The normal understanding of the Church is that it is only the institutional structure, the congregation that Sunday-by-Sunday meets to hear the scriptures read, to break bread, to pray and fellowship (Act 2.42).

If you would like a snapshot of this regular view, Google 'the Body of Christ', then click 'images' and peruse. For example, the image to the left gives this mistaken view in a nutshell.


However, we misunderstand the riches of the meaning of the Church as the Body of Christ if we believe that Church is fully expressed in its congregational activity, the 'religious' gathering on Sunday (or whenever), personal evangelism and individual 'good works'.

This grievous error of equating the Church with the congregation James Thwaites attempts to dispel in the above book.

In this introductory post, I can't present all the evidence for Thwaites' uncommon, though completely orthodox view (although Thwaites' speculations are at times unorthodox bordering on a form of panentheism). So I will outline one scriptural area that could be explored by those wanting to have their own understanding of the Church<--->congregational relationship enriched.

Ephesians

Arguably Ephesians is the great NT letter focussing on The Church as the Body of Christ (and Colossians is a companion letter focussing on Christ as the Head of the Church). 

The picture given in Ephesians is of Christ seated at the right hand of the 'God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory' (Eph 1.17) who 'made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all' (Eph 1.22-23, emphases mine).

Amazing statements are made in Paul's prayer (Eph 1.15-23). These verses should urge us to look beyond the Christian congregation (not forsaking it because it is a necessary part* of the Church) to what God is doing through his whole Church in all areas of life: marriage, family, and every work life (see Eph 5.21-33; 6.1-4, 5-9).

An Important Implication

Many important implications flow from the above understanding of the Church and its servant, the congregations of the various denominations. 

One that I want to emphasise at this point is that every Christ-believer is a 'minister' and is part of the general ministry of Christ's Body (Eph 4.11-13).

That being so, the term 'full-time Christian worker or minister' used to imply that only 'ordained, full-time pastors or workers' are full-time Christian workers is incorrect. 

However, I hear this expressed all the time and I'm sure readers of this blog do too. This view means that most of the people of God are outside the exalted group of Christian ministers and have to be content with doing 'secular' work which of course is inferior to the 'sacred' work of the church's ministry.  

This view falls short of the NT view of 'ministry' which essentially means service.

Next time, I will outline a brief history of how the churches of today got themselves into this unbiblical position and some steps we need to take to break our way out of it.  

* Perhaps as a hub is to a wheel depending on how important one sees the institutional church to be and I do see it to be important.