What in the World is the Church?
At first it seems like a dumb question! A no-brainer! The church is a place with a steeple on top where you go to worship, pray, and listen to a
(hopefully interesting) sermon. And, of course, this definition is both true and very incomplete!
First of all, a church is not a building at all, but a community of people bound together by love for Christ and love for each other. So in this
sense, no one goes to church - rather we are the church!
Second, the church is far more than an hour of worship and preaching once a week. While the worship of God and the preaching of his word are of
absolute importance - and never to be neglected - of equal importance are things like service, fellowship, evangelism, missions, and spiritual
growth.
Our leadership at FBCG is doing a lot of thinking about what it means to be the church these days. We want to be a community of faith devoted to
worship and preaching - but also to
REACHING - the people and families of our local community
CONNECTING - them to Christ, to FBCG and to each other
EQUIPPING - believers for spiritual maturity and ministry
SERVING - others in the name of Christ
This weekend Pastor Jeff and I will begin a 6-week series of messages entitled, What in the World is the Church: Understanding and becoming
the Body of Christ. We will be looking into God's Word (Acts 2 and Ephesians 4) to learn what the Lord expects of us as his people - and
looking forward to where he is leading FBCG as a church family.
I hope you will join us for the journey!
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1 comment:
Hey Brian,
Interesting that this is the most recent topic on your blog, as it is something I personally as well as our church have been asking. It seems as though many congregations, ministers, and theologians are also thinking through these same dynamics. I'm sure you have plenty to read, but a pastor out of the UK has a great blog and has some great suggested reading around the topic. His name is Jason Clark and he is blogging at http://deepchurch.org.uk/. One of the things we have been studying is the idea of consumerism as a religious structure and how the emerging church is finding deep meaning standing against the consumerist culture. A part of that is realizing that the church and faith, as you have said, is not simply one more thing to add to the list of "stuff" you do. Rather it should be the main thing in your life that everything else is structured around. We have also been looking at what it looks like to move toward encouraging people to live in intentional community, as you find when you research the Harambee center and organizations of that sort. Blessings to you and the body at FBCG as you ask tough questions and continue to become the body God has called us to be!
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