the living church

Before we fell to what we are, I believe there was a living church. I believe there were men and women in community who had faith -- not merely that God exists, but they had faith in Him; they trusted Him radically.

The living church lives through relationship -- and not relationship forced because "we both are faithful attendees of Church B," nor relationship that merely exists "deeply" until attendee A or B sins too grievously for that deepness to continue. The living church lives through relationship with the God-Man Jesus. His amazing grace flowing down over lost and broken souls catalyzes human relationship -- automatically and miraculously. It's not forced. In our innate humanness, it may be hard, but it's never out of obligation, and it's never based on anything less than the awe of the gracious blood of Jesus.

I believe the passion of the living church is getting God the maximum glory, and I believe this exists only by making missions the primary thrust of the church. Worship, fellowship, Biblical study -- they all combine to push forward the mission mandate of Matthew 28.19-20* and the promise of Matthew 24.14**. Wanting the world to be, as Keith Green would say, bananas for Jesus -- that is the goal of the living church. Missions ignites when the town drunk is embraced, when the hurting one finds love and hope through people who admit they know what hurting means too. And missions exists when the living church uses its resources to get the gospel to those who won't hear it any other way. Missions is at the very heart of a church.

I believe the authentic church still exists today, but I don't believe it's in the forms of "proven methods" of worship. Worship, after all, is anything but methodical. It's often spontaneous; it's always risky; it's heart-felt and heart-inspired. I don't believe the living church is made up of anyone convinced of their own righteousness. I believe the church is made up of the hopeless, the broken, the fallen, the abused -- the scalawags and sinners who know that by doing they can't prove anything to God about how they deserve to get into His heaven. At all levels, the living church does not forget how to say "I was wrong," "I'm sorry," "I forgive you," and "I love you." And the living church does not forget to mean it.

And then, people of the living church, in their radical faith -- though they may doubt, cry, pray, and drag their feet -- are not afraid to say, "Yes, Lord, I'll go to Lebanon," "Yes, I will give away all I own," "Yes, I will invite this dirty, bedraggled stranger into my home..." simply because their Lord asks them to. The living church has no power to do this of themselves; yet they claim the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, and through it, create a presence in the world so rare, so precious, so alive that it cannot be mistaken for anything but the living church.


* "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you..."
** "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come" (italics mine).