Today's Church pt 8
Today a lot of people talk about having Jesus, but Jesus must have you.[1] Jesus must have people’s thoughts, outlook on life, and worldviews before Christians can be effective in loving people outside the Church. Spiritual obesity is like a cancerous cell that moves throughout the body. It starts to spread over time and eventually will kill it. People do what is convenient and comfortable. The lack of spiritual growth inevitably leads to a diminished desire to share Christ with others. C. S. Lewis declares, “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want a religion to make you really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”[2] The unevangelized in America is the third largest mission field in the world. How can this be? America is the home of the freedom of religion, speech, and rights movement. How can a country that has these rights be so far away from God? There are only two kinds of people in today’s world: the saved and the unsaved. There are no in-betweens. The average person in today’s world is “turned off” at the whole idea of “church.”[3]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer says this about the Church, “The church is the church only when it exists for others.”[4] Every believer has
the responsibility of being a witness in one’s faith and walk with Jesus Christ. Jesus had a market-place theology. He met people where they lived. He walked where they walked. He did not expect them to come to the temple or synagogues to hear His messages. He met the people where they were.The Bible teaches that every Christian, not just the ordained clergy of the Church, is a minister. Ephesians 4:11-12 states:
It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.[5]
Every member of the Body of Christ has been given some spiritual gift that is an evidence of the Spirit’s working in their lives. All the gifts are intended to build up the members of the Christian community. Christians are an evangelizing agent on God’s behalf. Some Christians are baptized ministers and others are ordained ministers. Everyone has a ministry and mission. They need to be ministers for God, to one another, and to the world.[6]
Paid in Full
[1] Slaughter and Bird, 58.
[2] Sweet, Carpe Mañana: Is Your Church Ready to Seize Tomorrow?, 42.
[3] Krupp, 1.
[4] Leonard Sweet, Faith Quakes (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 193.
[5] Ephesians 4:11-12, NIV.
[6] Krupp, 65.
