The Unstoppable Church

"And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." Ephesians 1:22

When the church knows who she is - she cannot help but transform the world.  When the church knows who leads her - nothing can destroy her mission and charge.  The church is the body of Christ, the fullness of God who fills everything.  The church is not a shadow of Christ, an imitation of Christ, or a disciple of Christ - the Church is the living body of Christ.  When the church, that is its substantive members, make Christ head and Lord of all, she naturally takes on the actual form of Christ's body.  This body is consistent with what we see the body of Christ being and doing in the New Testament account of Jesus of Nazareth. It is also consistent with the form of Christ that is revealed in the Old Testament law and prophets.  This body that is the church does not act LIKE Jesus, it IS Jesus.  After the incarnate Christ ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, the Holy Spirit was given to the gathered believers to create in them the church - the embodiment of Christ's own essence.  And since every authority and power on earth and in heaven, both now and in the future, has been placed under the dominion of Christ by the Father, there is nothing that can overcome the church and there is nothing that the church cannot overcome.  The church is God's ongoing revelation in the world.  It is God's presence to the nations, God's open door to all who seek life.  Jesus' ministry is meant to continue through his manifestation in the church.  Jesus' sacrificial love and service, his prophetic word to religious leadership, his abiding hope in the face of death through his resurrection are all to be expressed through the community of believers.   These tasks cannot be duplicated, imitated, or re-created by human efforts or by institutional organization.  They must naturally occur by the indwelling Spirit of Christ being himself within the community.  Only when Christ is being Christ's body in the church will it overcome all things and refuse to be overcome by anything but its submission to the will of God.  By submitting only to the will of God and by making Christ Lord over all, you make the church all that she is meant to be.

"Letting myself be loved by God is the most important reality in my life" - Brennan Manning 

There is nothing more important than being loved by God.  It is the most basic ingredient to life itself.  To be loved is to bask in the good intention and attention of the lover.  It is to receive the irrational and unmerited affection of another.  To know the love of God is an act of faith.  It is the way of salvation, healing, strength, and peace.  When we are truly love by God not just in principle but in our experience, we are free.  Free from shame, anxiety, and emptiness.  Believe it and you will live.

Preserving Corporate Worship

When an individual at their height of faith reaches an acknowledgment, celebration, and gratitude of all they know God to be, he or she worships.  When individuals bring not only this deeply personal expression but also the same recognition pertaining to God's activity and character among others and the community as a whole, it is corporate worship.  When corporate worship takes place there is not only a cumulative affect, but an exponential one.  The truth of God grows drastically beyond ourselves and into the realm of God's love and action in the world around us.  Just as a body at work depends on the natural harmony of its parts in concert to function, the church needs worship in community to accesses the subconscious salvation story in its diverse members, coming together in manifold witness.  Worship, when done in Spirit and Truth is effortless.  It happens in response to an awareness of God (which usually does require some effort to achieve).  It is like the rain that falls when the conditions are right - it cannot remain in the clouds as it was, it must transform and become something new.  So corporate worship is a building block of the body of Christ.  It allows persons to become new creations, and to do so together provides mutual encouragement (watching God minister to others), unity and mutual love (through shared experience of the living God), and creates an alternative community based on the truth that the LORD alone is God (that salvation does not exist apart from God).  Of course, none of these life altering and Kingdom ushering consequences of worship occur if worship becomes what it so often is in the institutional church: something painfully less than a vulnerable realization of God's own divine presence.  Most commonly the expressions of God's presence themselves get in the way.  The music, the sermon, the space, the clothing, the style, the order, the personalities in leadership.  All represent the intention to acknowledge and honor God's presence.  All run the risk of stealing our attention from the One Thing altogether.  For this reason, the primary aim for both leaders and participants in corporate worship at every turn must remain a tireless pursuit of encountering the Spirit himself.  Only then will these noble expressions fulfill their purpose, keep in their designated place, and provide a meaningful path to the goal itself - the Godhead.