September 15, 2008
Pillars
Aside from Christ, the focus of our new start-up church is on establishing leadership and membership, rather than focusing on mission statements such as, ‘seek the seekers or disciple the disciples’. With few exceptions, all our attendees are seasoned believers and I’ve gotta tell you, it feels very surreal. Now I know we are to reach out to the lost, but I’ve got to confess…it is pure joy to be in worship surrounded by such pillars of faith. Seriously, we’re talking about a really mature Spirit here. I think this may be as close as it gets to being “surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…” (Heb 12:1) at least on this earthly plane.
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Gail;
-----We live in a bumper sticker society. We have just elected a President according to his great slogans. We shape the nature of our churches according to cute quips. We select church leaders according to their accomplishments. If sound Biblical principles can be found when we drill into these slogans, quips, and accomplishments, then fine. But far too often, a good drilling produces only the sucking sound of a strong vacuum.
-----Jesus’ prayer at John 17:21 was that, by our unity, the world might know He was sent from the Father. Correctly dividing the Word produces unity, not slogans and quips. Slogans and quips divide people. The authority the Bible gives to church leaders is for assuring that the church grows in Biblical principles only. I watched a recent interview of Rick Warren by Bill O’Reilly. No more than half a dozen words of one question asked by O’Reilly shined a strong light upon the Scriptural vacancy of Warren’s church lead by slogan. He asked how the church was to respond to one gay member protesting California’s Proposition 9. For the sake of being able to “reach out” by including gays as “members” of Christ’s body the very first purpose of the fellowship of believers is eliminated. That principle is, of course, the fellowship of believers. The unity is in believing, and the believing must be through the Word, because the Word is from Christ. One can not believe in Christ while accepting what Christ denies.
-----Therefore, by casting off cute little quips and establishing the purpose of the church upon only the Word of God, we enter a fellowship that understands the necessity of wisdom, obedience, and knowledge. The character these generate reaches out itself. For the unity needed to convince the world Jesus was sent by the Father comes only from straight forward obedience to what the Bible expresses with straight forward terms, and from baring with the differences spawned by the Bible’s more general expressions. The Bible’s terms about the spiritual growth of gentleness, mercy, kindness, respect, honor, obedience, and the likes are straight forward. It only follows that one expects to see them in the church. But the slogans about seeking seekers and discipling disciples are vague, at best, and limited in scope. For cute quips do not produce a congregation of spiritually strong, Bible expressing people unafraid to show the substance of their faith and emotion.
-----So I, too, am happy for the fellowship you have found. I thank God for your congregation’s strength of conviction and their unwillingness to hide it. Your church does not have to be full of unbelievers to be reaching out. It need only be full of believers who use their baskets to carry fruit, rather than to hide light. Pillars of faith invoke faith from those in their presence. As faith invokes faith, Biblical character comes into the open for all to see. Then the world sees that Jesus was sent from the Father and will come as believers to actually grow in a faithful environment.
Love,
Steve Corey
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