Getting Church Right

Getting Church Right

To be sincere, I don't know what to title the thoughts I'm about putting down here. It's a burden in my heart which I think believers should consider again.

The local church can be the most important aspect of our evangelism if we get it right but it can also be the greatest hindrance to the work of God on the earth and a major frustration to the believer enjoying the fullness of God.

We can't fully grasp the usefulness of the local church without first understanding that the mandate we have from Christ isn't to go plant churches but to go make disciples who will be like Christ and for us to also understand that the mandate is to every single disciple and not just to church leaders only. 

We understand however that having a local church helps to raise platforms for discipleship with the goal of turning people to disciple-making followers of Christ. Without this important aspect of the purpose of the local church, it becomes irrelevant. 

Jesus Christ envisaged the emergence of communities of believers after His departure, Matthew chapter 18 is clear about that, and He gave certain instructions about the power and the authority of a united group of believers before God and in the lives of each believer, even if they aren't more than two or three.

The fact that He gave one of the disciples the job to feed and to care for the flock established the place of the pastor to lead a group of believers. But that doesn't approve divisions within the church universal. The local church isn't a means of division within the body of Christ, it only serves for administrative convenience for effective pursuit of purpose. It isn't also a mandate to make the flock the belonging of the pastor, to control and to dominate the lives of the people outside the desire of the chief shepherd and outside the mode of the Holy Spirit. 

The local church isn't a cul de sac, a dead end or a walling-in of believers from the body of Christ, preventing those who came in from fellowship or working with other brethren outside the local church. When it becomes like that, it cuts off the particular local church from the body. No local church is the sole body of Christ and it can't be, except it isn't part of the body any more, cut off to be another church on its own outside of Christ, 

and that is quite instructive.

This is why our doctrines about church membership must be well thought about. I know we want to identify who is who in a local church, and we have to be careful WHY we want to know. If it is to be able to present every man perfect in the day of Christ or to be able to give accounts of each person on that day, then pursuing a standing membership in the local church would be necessary. But if it is to have a sense of ownership of people as a sign of success, to command people's allegiance and loyalty to self in service or in financial extraction, then the essence of the local church is lost and defeated. This is what defines the difference between building an organisation using the parameters of the church setting and being a vital part of an organism called the body of Christ.

Denominationalism is a slippery slope for Christian leaders. It takes a lot of spiritual strength and courageous deadness to self to lead a group of people into denominationalism and still remain part of the body of Christ. Paul asked the Corinthians, is Christ divided? Christ must never be divided on the basis of administrative conveniences that don't permit all of us to worship under same roof. Not worshipping under same roof must never become a reason why those under one roof cannot go under another roof except they are seen as being excommunicated and rebels. Any two or more members of the body of Christ should be able to have uncensored fellowship with one another without another one feeling threatened, to such a fellowship we have been called. We have not being called to an assembly but to the assembling with one another. 

Denominationalism becomes division when people no longer recognise the body of Christ but their little groups. It becomes a problem when people in a group become exclusively for the group and can't go in and out to find pasture. It becomes a menace when the leadership becomes the overall decision making system without the Holy Spirit, where the Spirit of God can't speak or lead except through the leaders even with a Spirit filled congregation. Why should the Spirit of God take permission from a member of the body of Christ before leading another, are we greater than Him? Rather, we are to keep whatever is kept in our charge by the Holy Spirit and not without Him. 

A genuine local church will be one where every member of the body of Christ can be part of, even without membership and each of them can fellowship with any other believer from any other local church under the Spirit of God.

But a situation where believers are only members of a local church and their membership of the body of Christ can only be defined by their membership of only one local church or denomination isn't godly.

That's why some pastors become so agitated when people leave their churches and they feel God should be so paranoid along with them, even when those who left their churches haven't left the body of Christ. Are we more bothered about believers' loyalty and allegiance to our pet projects than to Christ? We have to be careful not to make ourselves rivals to Christ over those who He has purchased with His own blood. 

We know denominations that won't permit marriage outside their borders. We know those who don't recognise your salvation except you accept salvation their way. We know those who won't recognise your water baptism except it is done by them and you will have to do it again for them to be sure and for your name to enter into their book of membership even if it had been written in the Lamb's book of Life a long time ago. We have those denominations that believe they are the only ones approved of God, the only ones on the way to heaven. We have those that send forth people leaving them with curses, making enemies of those who left, and we also have those who left, making enemies of those who remained. How can any of these stand the test of Christ in eternity? 

We have to get what we are doing straight. Are we building for Christ or for ourselves? We have to be able to separate our own personal preferences and pleasures from that of Christ, if truly we are building for Him, otherwise when the work is tested by His fire, we may lose everything.

I have many things on my mind on this matter, but let me stop here for now and let's think about this.

Leave your thoughts, do you think we are perfectly following the Spirit of Christ the way we are handling the separation of local churches? Do you think we are actually pursuing purpose by our membership drive that undermines the membership of the body of Christ? Let me have your thoughts, do well to quickly go through the Scriptures listed that underline my thoughts here for references... God's blessings in Jesus name!

Matthew 28:18-20

Mathew 18:10-20

John 21:15-20

1Corinthians 1:9-13

Luke 12:45-48

1Corinthians 12:14-27

2Timothy 1:14

Hebrews 10:25

Acts 20:28

1Corinthians 3:13-15

1Peter 5:1-4

3John 1:9-12

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