CHURCH AS THE FAMILY OF GOD. Part 5

There is one thing that happens in every family – members share responsibility. Each member of the family has a different role. We don’t ask toddlers to go and earn a living. The grandparents, the father, the mother, the children, infants – everyone has a role, and it works together for the good of the whole family.
In our recent Sabbath School we looked at the advice given by apostle John – different to the fathers, different to the young man, different to children (1st John 2:13-14). If you look at the church through a different metaphor – the Body – each member, the eyes, ears, hands, feet, has a different function.
In a dysfunctional family the members do not carry their responsibilities. Parents either neglect their children or worship them, not giving them training, comfort and guidance.
The household of God is a functional family, for the Holy Spirit distributes functions as he pleases. There are older men and women who have know the Lord for a long time, and whose responsibility is to mentor younger brothers and sisters. These responsibilities are not positional or hierarchical, but organic, and they operate by the respect of spiritual life.
The young generation bring excitement and strength, they inject zeal and energy, as older generation provides stability.
Consider your role, your function in our Church Family. Are you functioning according to the place God has for you? If you are newborn believer – are you listening obediently to advice and discipline? If you have grown in the Lord – are you mentoring others? Discover your calling!

CHURCH AS THE FAMILY OF GOD. Part 4.

Today I invite you to consider that the Family Grows, always! I speak of a healthy functional family. It grows both, through the division and multiplication. The church that is a family will also grow. If a church grows too large, it may divide and multiply into two fellowships. Our bodies grow the same way – cells divide and then multiply.
This week I’ve learned a great news: our Conference leadership had approved to invest in church growth and development in London by sending us one more full time pastor. Taking into consideration that London is the 5th by size urban area in Ontario, and yet it is the least entered territory by the Adventist message, we have a tall responsibility. In the coming week our elders will meet with Conference Leadership to decide how to distribute responsibilities between two pastors. To grow it takes a positive intentional division to multiply!
Yet, the most important growth I want you to think about is ADDITION. That is by giving birth to spiritual children. This is the principle of reproduction in a healthy functional family. Have you personally added to the family of God? You may have added physical children to your family, are they also members of the Family of God? Have you sought to reproduce by mentoring others for spiritual growth?
If the Lord is at work in a church it will grow. It may not be immediate, it will take time, but for sure, if the church is alive and healthy it will grow, both internally (spiritually) and externally (numerically).
Churches that live as a Family grow. Churches that operate as business corporations typically don’t and can’t keep their converts. They may make converts, but if converts do not become disciples, and then functional members of the Body, they leave. It takes authentic community for proper spiritual formation.
This week I visited with a person who studied with It Is Written staff, and agrees with our doctrines, but she attends a small church at 1700 Dundas, because she feels there as in a family, they give her ride, they care for her. People in the postmodern disconnected world are looking for family more than ever. People are looking for organic Christianity. Church as a family answers the deepest cries that lie in the human heart.

CHURCH AS THE FAMILY OF GOD. Part 3.

We continue re-imagining church as the living reality of being the family of God. I know you are reading, as I receive phonecalls with interesting questions. Over the past two weeks we considered that in the Family Members take care of one another, and that the Family Spend Time Together.
Today I would like to address yet another practice of a church as Christ meant it. Family members Show One Another Affection. It is not a coincidence that the Sabbath School quarterly “Loved and Loving” comes when we are focusing on the need for developing loving relationships in the church. Last weeks lesson was especially poignant in addressing it.
How do you greet your family when you meet them? How do you salute your mother, father, children, especially after a time apart? I just returned from a week at Oshkosh with kids, missed my wife, and I knew I would have a special hug. How do we meet our family? Do we salute each other at a distance, or do we exchange hugs and, maybe even kisses?
The answer depends on how “healthy” is your family. The early church considered all its members “related” in Christ and that’s why apostles encouraged Christians to “greet one another with a holy kiss” (1st Thessalonians 5:26; 1st Corinthians 16:20; 2nd Corinthians 13:12; Romans 16:16; 1st Peter 5:14) It was important to early Christians that the members of each church express their affection for one another visibly.
I know that even by writing these simple Biblical references I will provoke concern among some people reading it. We live in a sick and dysfunctional society which glorifies perversion, abuse, and then hypocritically misinterprets what is normal. I’ve met and heard church members who complained that they do not feel comfortable hugging anyone from the church. I’ve read about pastors put on trial for encouraging hugs in church as inappropriate.
Bottom line is this – an institutional formal church and an organic family of God are different things. The dysfunctional family shows no affections toward its members, parents never touch its children, and children grow up feeling unloved and unaccepted. Yet, you’ve read findings where a simple touch is vital for infants, children without a loving touch will not live.
May your actions show your affection! Do not let the contagion of the sick society make God’s family ill too…

CHURCH AS THE FAMILY OF GOD. Part 2.

We are re-imagining church as the living reality of being the family of God. I am sharing Biblical paradigms for the Church as a Family. Last week we considered that in the Family Members take care of one another.
Today we look at the second characteristic: Family Spend Time Together. Family members spend time together getting to know each other. How well do you know your brothers and sisters in the church? How much time do you spend together outside of scheduled meetings?
In a dysfunctional family children barely know the parents. Parents buy gifts to busy their kids. Siblings may grow under same roof, living separate lives. The only time they get together is when they have a scheduled meeting – someone’s wedding, birthday, graduation, or other “significant” events. Outside of that – everyone is in his/her room, doing their own things, having separate bank accounts.
Do members in our church see each other outside of scheduled meetings? Is there someone that you care to visit with, and spend time together if not for the “scheduled” meeting? Just for fun of spending time together, cooking, gardening, baking, painting, playing, listening music, golfing? Do you like the people you call “brothers” and “sisters”?
When you consider the early Christian Church their innate DNA was pulling them to meet together. Holy Spirit in a believer is a magnet that organically draws one Christian to another Christian. Holy Spirit puts in our hearts a genuine desire for authentic community. Just read Acts 2:42,46 “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.” Hebrews 3:13 says “encourage one another daily!”
In most churches the only fellowship people get is two minutes when worship leader says “turn around and greet people behind you.” Could it be that we are so afraid of intimacy, that devil so twisted our society that we are afraid to risk relationships? Many people are not interested in a “house church” because it is safer to hang out in a pew, inspect the back of someone’s head for a couple of hours and then retreat home. But the church is not a theatre, it is a Family!
Spend time with each other!

CHURCH AS THE FAMILY OF GOD. Part 1

Past week you were to ask yourself a question: “Is my church living in the reality of being the family of God?” and also you were to ask yourself “what is my role in the Family?” What are your answers?
Over the next few weeks I will share with you a few Biblical paradigms for the Church as a Family.
First: Members take care of one another. Isn’t it true that you take care of your natural blood? And they take care of you? If your mother, father, brother, sister son, daughter has a problem, do you say “sorry, don’t bother me?” Dysfunctional family doesn’t, it’s selfish, individualistic and profoundly independent. It’s characterized by detachment and unconnectedness. Members do not take time to know one another.
Apostle James addresses such situation: “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:14-17)
Apostle Paul considered caring for one’s family the first test of faith. “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” (1 Timothy 5:8)
The real faith expresses itself in acts of love toward our brothers and sisters in Christ. The action James was talking about is not prayer or Bible study, but supplying physical needs. Consider these words of Paul. “..must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need” (Ephesians 4:28)
Protestant “work ethic” is not about selfish pursuit of “American dream” but is work to meet needs of others.
Do you care for your church brothers and sisters physically, financially, spiritually, emotionally? The first 6 chapters of Acts show us a picture of the model Christian church sculpted by Christ through disciples. They saw themselves as extended family. Today, when you great each other, say “Brother” and “sister” and mean it. “Carry each other burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2)

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?”

BIBLICAL MANDATE FOR COMMUNITY GROUPS

Last week I shared with you common fears people have about starting small groups. Let me share with you positive side and the purpose as it is outlined in the Word of God.
We are studying letters of John, and the practical expression of love, commanded in 1st John 3:18 “dear children, let us not love with words of tongue but with actions and in truth” is taking place when we are bearing others’ burdens, rejoicing with others, helping one another, listening to one another, sharing goods with one another. This “one-another” concept is impossible in the formal setting of a large gathering. It comes to reality only in small groups, where vulnerability, trust, openness is a reality.
So here are five reasons why groups are necessary:
1. Small groups restore relationships. The command to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31) is Jesus’ invitation to form a horizontal person-to-person (p2p) relationships, broken ever since the fall in Eden.
2. Working together is better than working alone. Combined strength of two is greater than double strength of one (synergy!). Just read the wisdom of Ecclesiastes (4:9-12)
3. Jesus modeled the Use of Small Groups. The legacy of Jesus was twofold – the Message and the Method. For Legacy to work it cannot be separated. We love the Message = Gospel. What about the Method = Group? Discipling is possible only through small groups.
4. God ministers through groups of people. Read stories in Daniel 1 & 2 where young men banded together to maintain their relationship with the Lord and support one another through prayer. Paul’s teaching on “body parts” (1st Corinth. 12:12-27) Jesus teaching (John 13:34-35), stories from the Acts of the Holy Spirit all show that it was original practice of Christian church.
5. The “Body” concept requires the Small Group. Interdependency of body parts to function and the fact that no one has all the gifts, and no individual can claim to be Christ pulls together believers in the community where we become the “Body of Christ” together, ready for His Spirit to fill us and use us.
Over the next few weeks you would see regular blogs on this topic, as we are planning our implementation strategy. Let me share with you what is expected from people in a Small Group. First – Extra Grace! Then – regular participation, consensus, honesty, confidentiality, acceptance, active listening, prayer, punctuality, positive attitude, and love. Listen to God’s Call in your life – go and build the community!