REIMAGINING OUR CHURCH

As I look into the future needs and challenges of our church I return more to the Bible for advice and guidance. The chief metaphor for the church in the New Testament is FAMILY!
I believe that we must restore Christ’s intent for our church by becoming family-like. A year ago we had taken a survey on our church development, and the recommendation was very simple: develop more leadership for groups and house churches to increase relational context. At the time we also needed to improve our corporate evangelism. Hence my effort over the past year was to bring training for Evangelism, and to organize an event for members to know that YES, WE CAN!
Now it’s time to get to the urgent need – restoring Christ’s Method for spreading His Message – discipling, and that is possible only by real spiritual leaders in settings of small groups, just like Jesus did it!
The Sabbath School this quarterly is more than ever is fitting to develop this teaching. Just consider John’s letter “I write to you, little children, Because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. I write to you, fathers, Because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, Because you have overcome the wicked one. I write to you, little children, Because you have known the Father.” (1st John 2:12-13) Just think about these familial terms!
The church is not a corporation with business meetings and structures, with CEO pastor, but is a family, a household of God, where “brothers” and “sisters, ” “fathers” and “mothers”, “children” represent a way of relation to each other. Regrettably our present day society is plagued with what sociologist call “dysfunctional family.” Many of our churches act as “dysfunctional families,” not knowing each other, living separate lives, not spending time together, and only on special occasions putting on an effort to “get together”
This week I invite you to ask yourself a question: “Is my church living in the reality of being the family of God?” and ask yourself “what is my role in the Family?”