My last post talked about Macro ecclesia – the Big Picture of the Body
of Christ – the ‘Church Universal’ as we used to say.
This post concerns itself with micro ecclesia – the smallest image of the
Body of Christ – smaller even than what we generally call ‘the local church’.
In this regard, I am of a similar view to
that of Floyd McClung in You See Bones, I
see an Army (David C Cook, Kingsway Communications Limited, London UK,
2007).
I want to encourage my readers to get
hold of McClung’s book and read it. Read
it as an informed practitioner. I know
reading is fading away as an occupation for today’s citizenry, but, in my
experience over forty-odd years, those who read are the ones also doing the
work at the coal-face and on the cutting-edge of spiritual ministry today.
And mind this too: Floyd McClung is not speaking or writing from the position of an armchair critic. Quite the opposite: he is a pioneering and apostolic servant of Jesus and servant of many people in different and difficult parts of the world – from Afghanistan to the Netherlands, to South Africa.
This is how Floyd lays out the background for the rest of his book:
“No one will die for a cause that is no bigger
than Sunday-orientated, building-fixated Christianity. But people will lay down their lives for a
cause that is bigger than themselves, and bigger than the local church
building…
“At the same time that we face a crisis
of church relevance in the West, there is a spiritual revolution going on in
the rest of the world. Millions of
people are meeting in small home churches in China, India, Central Asia and
South America. Without knowing it, they
are breaking out of small definitions the rest of us in the West hold dear.
“The ‘rest’ have a message for the West:
church is not an institution but an army.
Believers in the rest of the world are not devoted to doing church in
religious buildings, but gathering anywhere and everywhere they can to study
the words of Jesus and to pray and worship.
The participants in this revolution believe they are at their best when
they meet in twos and threes, not two- and three-thousands, and they don’t see their small gatherings as
the purpose for church, but the means for them to be encouraged in their
longing to see more people know Jesus.
“The followers of Jesus around the world
who do church in small, simple organic communities believe that Jesus is
continuing in them what he came to begin 2,000 years ago…
“What Jesus taught about church is so
simple anyone can do it. His example of doing church was a community
of men and women reaching out together…
Complicated ways of doing church are overwhelming and difficult to feel
part of. How many people believe they
can start or lead a mega-church?
“Success in doing church, as defined by
Western methods of church, is often counter to birthing a spontaneously
reproducing movement of churches.” (pp. 12-13
More from McClung later.
-----------------------------
Neil Cole, in Organic Church (© 2005 Jossey-Bass [Wiley]) puts it beautifully
when he writes, “Most Christians today are trying to figure out how to bring
lost people to Jesus. The key to
starting churches that reproduce spontaneously is to bring Jesus to lost
people. We’re not interested in starting
a regional church but rather in making Jesus available to a whole region.”
(p.24)
I believe motivation is critical. What is my motivation for doing what I
do? Why am I in this business of being a
disciple of Jesus? What am I looking to
achieve? Or, what is my definition of
success in the thing I seek to do? We
need to settle these and other issues within ourselves or we will almost
invariably find ourselves dreaming up a plan and copying someone else’s means
and methods. The most likely scenario
then will be another ‘Babel’ – another monument to self.
-----------------------------
Similar to Paul Vieira, I believe Jesus Has Left the Building (© 2006,
Karis Publishing, Woodland Park CO 80863).
Paul’s chapter one “Outside the Walls” is introduced like this:
“It all started back at a Christian
family camp when I was fifteen years old.
Under a beautiful night sky, I asked God to take my life and use me in
any way He wanted to. The only way I can
explain what happened to me in that moment was that God lifted me into his loving
face, speaking these words: ‘Paul, I need you.’
I know that this doesn’t make any sense theologically. God doesn’t need anything. He is perfectly complete in Himself. And yet, Father graciously spoke to this
young teenager to enlist me into His purposes.
I accepted.
“The next evening, after my church’s
worship service, I took my guitar and my friends together down to the beach to
worship God. We did this night after
night for eleven days, crying, laughing, praying, bowing and dancing on the
sand. A fire was ignited in our
hearts. If I’d only known how deep this
flame would burn.” (p. 15)
I want to say to Paul Vieira,
My friend, don’t think “this doesn’t make
any sense”; it makes perfect sense. If
the theologians can’t see it, that is their problem. God is a Father (as you well know), and as
Father and God, He chooses how He
gets our attention, and He knows how best to relate to us that engineers an
unbreakable link between our spirit and His.
Jesus as a Son is unique in a few ways:
first, he was ‘once-born’ (that’s what ‘only begotten’ actually means) whereas
we must be ‘twice-born’ or born again; second, He is the ‘elder brother’ with
the double inheritance whereas we are ‘co-heirs’ with him of all that the
Father is and has; third, he “has been tempted in all things as we are, yet
without sin” whereas we struggle at times with our various temptations.
Remember Hebrews 2:11, “For both He who
sanctifies {Jesus} and those who are sanctified {us} are all from one {origin};
for this reason He {Jesus} is not ashamed to call them brothers.” Whatever theologians may think, Jesus sees us
as his brothers, while in no way compromising his wonderful uniqueness. He even does this “in the midst of the
congregation”, declaring “I will proclaim Your name to my brothers”; and he
even does it in the presence of the Father, declaring “I will put my trust in
{the Father} and say ‘Here I am, and the
children God has given me’.”
And my story?...
When I was around eleven years of age, I
was part of a boys’ club being run by our local congregation in Ipswich,
Australia. On one particular night as
the club leader lead a short bible talk, it was like God looked into my eyes with
His love and said, ‘I want you in my army.’
That one moment put my life on a trajectory few
had dreamed for me.
It was not until many years later that I
discovered the deep significance of how God drew me to Himself. At the time of this event, I knew I was
different from other boys because for some reason I couldn’t do many of the
things other boys could, like run or climb.
My little sister, five years younger, was better at these things than I
was. I was skinny and had a foreboding
memory of being in hospital for some reason.
I was born only seven years after the end of World War II and many of my
uncles had been involved in the war.
Ipswich, where I was born and lived, is home to Amberley, one of
Australia’s strategic Airforce bases.
Intuitively, I knew that I would never make it in any man’s army – I was
too weak and sickly. My response to God
was something along the lines of, ‘If you love me that much, you’ve got me for
life.’
From that moment on, God has always been a very dear father to me. My dad was small, wiry, very strong, very fast and a coal miner with a reputation that nobody messed with and a temper to match. His knick-name was ‘hell-fire Jack’. In 1959, when I was seven, Billy Graham came to Australia and my dad was swept up in the move that saw many Australians turn to face God and deal with their lives. Dad gave his life to God – I knew that. Dad had issues – I knew that. And we three younger children came to know a dad that the older ones hadn’t really known as young children.
Sometimes I say to people that God
‘arrested me with His love’ and they look at me strangely and as if I have said
something unintelligible. When Paul
wrote to the Philippians that he didn’t consider that he had ‘arrived’, as it
were, he went on to say, “…but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that
for which I also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12
NASB) ‘Lay hold of’ here comes from the
Greek word that we generally translate ‘apprehend’ – which we today sometimes
use as a alternative to ‘arrest’. The
RSV translation has Paul saying, “…I press on to make it my own, because Christ
Jesus has made me his own.” The RSV here
is not translating the individual words but the meaning of the group of words
taken together. Jesus laid hold of /
apprehended / arrested me for adoption into the family of God and for a
commission he had for me. I gladly take
to myself that for which he took me to himself.
We are joined in a bond stronger than marriage and stronger than death.
God arrested my dad in 1959: the Divine
Father was now his Father. God arrested
me four years later and attached me to Himself with a bond of love that cannot
be broken. Dad’s Father had become my
Father too. Dad knew that; I knew that;
and dad knew that I knew that. And the
Father knew us both – each named, called and arrested in his own way in his own
time. You know what? I believe that if there is one distinguishing
mark of ecclesia, it is that all who
are part of her have a story similar to this – named, called and arrested, for
the purposes of the Kingdom of God and the gospel of Jesus. And it only takes two or three such people,
joined together with Jesus, their elder brother, for their lives and the lives
of others around them to be transformed steadily but surely into a force that
reveals the face of God on the earth.
Now let’s flick back to the top of the
post. Re-read Floyd McClung. And a little further on in his book, Floyd
says this:
“Though Paul pioneered the first church
in Europe, it was Jesus who modelled simple church, and defined church in such
simple terms. He did this to help his
followers understand the new way of doing things. Here is the way Jesus defined church: ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name,
there I am in the midst of them’.” (p.44)
Since, as William Tyndale rightly pointed
out, ‘church’ is not a word that appears in the original texts of the New
Testament, I encourage my readers to substitute ecclesia for church in the above quote. Here is ecclesia
in micro. Two or three people named,
called, arrested (and commissioned) by the love of God and for the love of God
to be manifest on the earth, joining together under the authority of Jesus. Each one has seriously taken to him/herself
that for which Jesus took them to himself.
That is Floyd McClung’s story, both in
Capetown and “Livingon the Devil’s Doorstep” – read all of his books and you
will see it. That is Paul Vieira’s story
– and Jesus has indeed “left the building”, and so did Paul. That is Neil Cole’s story of ‘organic church’
bringing Jesus to lost people and growing into the likeness of Christ together.
It is also David Watson’s story (see
earlier post) – in which two or three (as much as two or three hundred)
gathered under the authority of Jesus can and do reflect the will of the Father
that ecclesia be marked by the glory
of God, the word of God, the joy of God and being united in the love of God. When David started out in ministry, there he
was with a mere handful of people at St Mark’s Gillingham, as he reports,
“praying, planning, studying and working together”.
And it is my story too. After I was arrested by the love of God at
eleven, I spent most of the next five years watching people walk with God and
reading an old AV bible. As I read I
said to God, “These stories are amazing; but I don’t want to just read and
enjoy the stories, I want to experience for myself what the stories are about.”
I think God must have rubbed His hands
with glee that day, because it’s been a ride-and-a-half for close to fifty
years.
At one stage I got to Acts and read about
Philip and the Ethiopian: “here is water, what hinders you from being
baptised?” True to form, God said one
Sunday morning, “here is water [the baptism tank], what hinders you from being
baptised?” “Nothing”, I replied. I talked to the elders and I and a band of
other young people were baptised in cold water in the middle of winter in
Ipswich. I was 16. I still have my old AV bible that mum and dad
gave me for my fifteenth birthday.
I’ve been part of groups of hundreds; I’ve been part of groups of tens; I’ve been part of groups of twos and threes. I’ve been a follower and I’ve been a leader. I’ve been on my own and I’ve been part of teams. I’ve been in buildings and I’ve been on the streets. One thing I have learnt is that ecclesia is the same whether it be two or three, or hundreds; whether it is serving the people of God or serving the world; whether it is planned or spontaneous; whether it is at a friend’s house or the Town Hall; whether it is inside or outside.
Ecclesia is
the living presence of Jesus with at least two or three of his ‘brothers’ as
they give all kinds of expression to their intimate union with the Father.
Cheers,
Kevin.
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