from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and Congregational and Ministry Studies at Calvin College

Posts Tagged ‘church’

|

Spirit at Work: The Transformer’s Instruments

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

The previous two articles addressed the Holy Spirit’s crucial work of “writing us into the story of salvation,” as Eugene Peterson puts it, and shaping us into fully mature saints—persons who aspire to live in, with, like, and for Jesus Christ. In this article we shall focus on the means the Spirit employs to achieve that goal.

God’s Word teaches that the Spirit employs four principal means for shaping Christians: Scripture, the sacraments, a person’s life experiences, and time. Furthermore, the Spirit puts these four to their optimal intent and use within the fellowship of Christ’s church—his worshiping, witnessing, and serving body.

A brief word about each of these instruments of the Spirit.

Growth in spiritual maturity begins with God’s Word. For healthy growth to occur, the Bible must be read properly, of course. Simply to read it in a rote, mechanical manner does the reader little spiritual good. Scripture must be read in line with its God-intended purpose—namely, to announce the Triune God’s earnest campaign to restore sinful, rebellious human beings to their place within God’s family. “The written Word,” says John Stott, “points to the Living Word and says to us, ‘Go to Jesus.’” Failing to recognize that would be to misunderstand the entire purpose for reading the Bible. But when a person dwells in God’s Word—reads it, memorizes it, studies it, and meditates upon it with an eye eager to see God at work rescuing his children from Satan’s angry jaws—he grows in God’s way.

Sacraments, too—baptism and the Lord’s Supper—are God’s gifts to help Christians grow. The Spirit uses common elements—water, bread, wine—to accomplish what is breathtakingly uncommon: through them believers are bound more closely to Jesus, and the gospel is impressed more deeply and permanently into their hearts.

A person’s life circumstances also serve the Holy Spirit’s high purposes. For it is precisely there—amid the sometimes messy and often mysterious events of one’s life—that the Lord intends the gospel’s promises and commands to be heard and obeyed. God pledges to superintend and guide all of those events in such a way that they can work toward growing a person into Christlikeness (cf. Romans 8:28-39; 2 Cor. 2:14). Thus, a person’s joys in life, her seasons of sorrow and sadness, even her times of wandering and wrongdoing, can serve as soft clay in which the Spirit’s hands can sculpt features of holiness, can etch deeper and clearer lines of saintliness.

Time, too, is the Spirit’s tool. Growth is a lifelong process. John Calvin was correct: Only at death does a person “graduate” from the school of Jesus Christ.

And we must say what has become a mantra these last few articles: these instruments of the Spirit work best together within the fellowship of Christian pilgrims who are enroute together. The Spirit uses the church to unite believers more fully as family, and to encourage them to support one another toward their common goal of becoming like Jesus.

To illustrate what I mean, let’s put these elements into something of an equation. What follows is my attempt to present visually the thoughts I heard from Howard Hendricks at a Dallas Seminary conference years ago. Granted, the formula is much too simple to account for all that goes into the complex divine/human process of moving people toward maturity in Christ. But perhaps it might prompt us to think about the means the Spirit uses in our lives to encourage our growth in godliness.

To explain:

  • God’s Word and sacraments together serve as fuel to live obediently amid life’s events.
  • Obedience, practiced over time, will yield holiness.
  • The church functions as catalyst for this process to happen. (Worshiping and fellowshipping together, Christians are encouraged to “make every effort to add to [their] faith” (2 Pet. 1:5), and to mature in Christ.)
  • The entire process depends upon the Holy Spirit, without whose energy nothing happens.

Some Jewish children once asked their rabbi: “Where did Enoch go?”
Rabbi: “He went to be with God.”
Children: “How do you know?”
Rabbi: “Because the last time people saw him, he was walking that way.”

A journey of lifelong obedience begins by taking the first step.

Spirit at Work: The Transformer’s Aim

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

In the last article we pointed out the Holy Spirit’s crucial work of “writing us into the story of salvation,” as Eugene Peterson puts it, and prompting us to trust Jesus’ promises and obey his commands. In this article we shall focus on the Spirit’s specific mission to make us saints—persons who aspire to live in, with, like and for Jesus.

Let’s start at the end—a very good place to start. The Spirit’s aim is to give people aim in life. He seeks to direct them along a path which shall enable them, at their life’s close, to have marked progress in learning Christ’s deeper ways, in growing to love him more and more. Jesus’ own goal in life, of course, was focused upon doing his Father’s will (cf Heb. 10.7) and thus bringing his Father delight. The Spirit aids Jesus’ followers to make that their aim, too—their laser-sharp aim.

Now, let’s go back to the beginning. Sin causes disarray in human lives. Satan jerks people around, and deviously conspires to make them go astray. (Cf Ezekiel 48.11; I Cor. 6.9) Persons without the Spirit are as undirected as a litter of young beagles on bungee cords. Within every sinful person’s heart, says Thomas Kelly, there exists a “whole committee of selves,” each jockeying for position and prominence. “Each self..…is a rank individualist, not cooperative, but shouting out his vote for himself when voting time comes. And even when a consensus is reached, the disgruntled minority agitates on the streets of the soul.”

So, when God’s Spirit sets out on his mission to transform a person, that soul is desperately wandering and lost.He feels unfulfilled and empty. Jesus’ followers must plead continually:

“O Lord, grant me heavenly wisdom that I may learn, above all things, to seek thee and to find thee, to relish thee and to love thee, and to order all things as they are according to thy purpose.” (Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ).

They must pray regularly, too, for the Spirit to guide them—to direct their heart’s deepest affections and allegiances aright, and to empower them to live as God intends. Continually they must make the Psalmist’s cry their own:

“Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths.
Guide me in your truth, and teach me. (Psalm 25.4-5a)

Saints also implore the Spirit for the discipline necessary to help them maintain their life’s direction by careful intention. For:

“As our purpose is, so shall our progress be, and there is need for much discipline for him who wisheth to advance much.” (The Imitation of Christ)

Christ-imitating, Father-glorifying, Spirit-prompted discipline is practiced best in the company of fellow Christians assembled for worship. Why? Because two facts are incontrovertibly true:

First, no Christian ever walks optimally alone. She needs fellow pilgrims to help her stay on the right path, to encourage her along the way.
Second, In the sanctuary of God’s presence—that is, in corporate worship—the Spirit pours energy into human hearts for acts of obedience, acts of praise along the way.

In worship believers’ hearts get set on pilgrimage again; their lives and loves become reoriented toward giving the Triune God due adoration and thanks, appropriate praise and glory

During Sunday worship many Christians use their hands to make the sign of the cross upon themselves. With this gesture they are declaring again what the entire Trinity once said about them when they were baptized. They touch their heads for the Father, in whose mind they were first conceived and whose thought gave them birth. They touch their hearts for the Son, whose love for them led him to Calvary and whose heart instructs their own hearts. They touch their shoulders for the Spirit, who, as Greg Kendra says, “gives us strength,…carries us on his shoulders…and enables us to be God’s arms, working on earth.”

CS Lewis once said: “The church exists for nothing else but to draw [people] into Christ, to make them little Christs.” I would add: The Spirit aims to make them icons—visible expressions—of the Trinity.

What a way to go at living: to aim daily to live like Jesus did, and thus to bring delight to God.

Similarly, what a way to head toward dying: to look back with joy upon a life lived carefully in trust and obedience toward God.; and to look forward with hope to joining the company of saints triumphant whose chief aim—“in a nobler, sweeter song”—is to bring the Triune God ever richer praise, ever purer devotion.

Spirit at Work: Transformer

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

Eugene Peterson, in his book The Pastor, writes, “The Holy Spirit is writing us into the revelation, the story of salvation. We find ourselves in the story as followers of Jesus. … Our task is to obey—believingly, trustingly obey.” These simple words reveal astonishing truth about the Holy Spirit’s critical role in the Trinity’s campaign to rescue God’s children from sin and bring them safely home again. God the Father mapped out the strategy (cf. Eph. 1:3ff). Jesus the Son, by his death and resurrection, invaded the dungeon of evil, delusion, and despair, and made the rescue. God the Spirit now applies the truth to believers’ hearts and empowers them to live and dance in the fresh air and bright sunlight of God’s good freedom again.

There’s no question about it: to transform a forgiven sinner into a saint is, from beginning to end, divine work. The chains of sin are too strong for us to free ourselves; the chasm too deep for us to make it out on our own. Not a single human being is a match for the power of evil that holds humanity in its grip. That’s what St. Paul had in mind when he prayed, “May the God of peace sanctify (read: “transform”) you entirely, and may your spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this” (1 Thess. 5:23-24).

But the Spirit also empowers us to play our own role in the drama of redemption. Our first duty is to believe the Good News; the second, to trust our Savior’s promises and obey his commands. To do both daily demands our intense focus and diligent effort. In both the prompting to belief, trust, and obedience, and the applying of Jesus’ redemption to human hearts, the Spirit works to transform humans into saints. The Spirit plants us in Jesus; the Spirit brings us into close fellowship with Jesus; the Spirit empowers us to live more and more like Jesus; the Spirit equips us to live for Jesus. In, with, like, for—four vital prepositions which describe the Spirit’s vast work of making believers teleios—that is, mature and Christ-like in every square millimeter of their lives. “And all of us,” says St. Paul, “seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory into another.” This entire process, he adds, takes place “[through] the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).

The Heidelberg Catechism, a 16th-century Christian confession, points out both dimensions of the process of growing in holiness—that is, both the Spirit’s initiating and our responding. Answer 114 states: “In this life even the holiest [persons and communities] have but a small beginning of this obedience”—a bracing reminder of human feebleness and an underscoring of the vital need for God’s Spirit. However, immediately thereafter the creed adds, “Nevertheless, with all seriousness of purpose, they do begin to live according to all, not only some, of God’s commandments,” thus underscoring the active role we [must] play in the process of learning to live as God intends.

William Temple, former Archbishop of Canterbury, pointed out the two sides in this way:

It is no good giving me a play like Hamlet or King Lear, and telling me to write a play like that. Shakespeare could do it; I can’t.

And it is no good showing me a life like the life of Jesus and telling me to live a life like that.  Jesus could do it; I can’t.

But if the genius of Shakespeare could come and live in me, then I could write plays like his. And if the Spirit of Jesus could come and live in me, then I could live a life like his.

Persons need radical transforming. So, too, do congregations. The pews of a church—any church—are filled with people whose hearts, though redeemed, keep pumping out both lovely good and venomous evil. Sinfulness and saintliness lie close to each other within the heart of even the holiest person. What is more, sin often disrupts relationships between fellow believers. It’s no small challenge to get along with fellow congregants—especially when they rub us the wrong way. ‘Tis true—often and everywhere:

To dwell above with saints we love. O that will be glory.
To dwell below with saints we know—that’s another story.

It takes the Spirit’s empowering, therefore, for the fellowship of the church to live together as saints. Jesus delights to call the church his bride. But the Spirit must continue the task of teaching the bride to keep dressing daily in her wedding gown, the clothing of holiness (cf. Col. 2:19; 3:12-17; Rom. 11:20).

On Sundays Christians gather to plead for the Transformer’s energy to work in their lives and in their life together as a church. For

God gives his grace and Holy Spirit
only to those who pray continually and groan inwardly,
asking God for these gifts
and thanking him for them. (Heidelberg Catechism, Answer 116)

“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25).

Spirit at Work: Guide

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

With “two hands,” said St. Irenaeus, third-century bishop of Lyons, God teaches and guides his people—with the Word and the Spirit. Not one only, nor the one acting separately from the other; rather, both, and working together. God’s Word teaches Jesus Christ’s followers his will. God’s Spirit leads them as they strive to interpret the Word and apply its meaning to their lives. The entire process—both the attentive reading of the Word and the careful listening to the Spirit’s guidance in applying it—is called discernment. Discernment is vital to followers of Jesus as they heed his call to learn and to love their Lord’s deeper ways.

In the last column we focused on the Spirit’s role in writing the Word. In this column we look at the Spirit’s work in guiding God’s people as they read and apply it.

History keeps moving on; life keeps changing. God’s people must be on the move, too, ever open to responding to new opportunities and challenges, ever keenly alert to their present circumstances. These opportunities, challenges, and circumstances are—to state the obvious—vastly different from when Scripture first was written. How then to keep their boat on course as wave after wave of change swells and crashes around them? How to steer their craft true to God’s Word? Those are the questions which Christians of every generation must keep asking and answering.

To discern what God’s Word is saying to Christians today is anything but easy—that, too, is obvious. Throughout the church’s 2,000-year history, not seldom have honest believers honestly disagreed about Scripture’s meaning. Not seldom have disagreements turned into debates, and debates into full-blown controversies.

However, the church’s task of discerning, though complex and difficult, is not some stab-in-the-dark guessing game, a willy-nilly act of private and undirected conjecturing. While he was with them on earth, Jesus promised the disciples that his Spirit “will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). And Jesus’ promise covers every succeeding generation of followers, our own age and generation not excluded (cf. John 17:20f). Jesus has not failed on his promise. Accordingly, with glad confidence Christians confess that the risen Jesus has sent his Spirit to lead them as they strive to discern what God’s Word is saying to them.

Throughout the church’s history, the Spirit has been employing numerous means to help God’s people learn and apply the Word. Among these means are the canon, the definitive list of books which belong in Scripture; creeds, timely confessions of what the church affirms (and rejects); and bishops and pastors, trustworthy leaders who teach and guide. These three together—canon, creed, and bishop—have helped to mark out and illuminate for believers appropriate paths of faithful Christian pilgrimage. They have served as the Spirit’s instruments to guide God’s people.

The Bible’s favorite tense is not the past, but the future. Everything in the Bible breathes future. God’s Word continually beckons the church to stand on tiptoe and with white-hot longing to keep hope for what awaits her: fellowship with her Savior and Lord, finally and fully. The call to practice that hope requires the church to stay spiritually healthy and robust, to renew and refresh herself again and again, and to plead for the Spirit’s help as she seeks to do so. Thus, the church must—yes, she must—keep changing. Jesus’ bride must live by the motto Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda secundum Verbum Dei: “A renewed church ought always to be renewing herself according to the Word of God.” Her life in the present demands it. Her anticipation of the life to come, when she shall be with her beloved Savior and Lord forever (1 Thess. 4:18)—that, too, demands it.

But as she changes and moves forward, the church ought to keep her eyes and ears open to the past, too. She must continue to read and to hear God’s inspired Word. She should learn from and enjoy the treasure of wisdom that is the Christian tradition, which has been accumulating throughout the church’s history.

Where better to receive blessing from God’s “two hands” than in Sunday morning worship? There Christ’s followers gather to hear the Word and to plead for the Spirit’s presence and power to understand and obey it. In the sanctuary of God’s presence (cf. Ps. 73:17) they invoke Charles Wesley’s words and join to sing their thanks for the gifts of Word and Spirit—God’s two strong, steady hands to guide them:

Captain of Israel’s host, and Guide
Of all who seek the land above,
Beneath thy shadow we abide,
The cloud of thy protecting love;
Our strength, thy grace; our rule, thy Word;
Our end, the glory of the Lord.
By thine unerring Spirit led,
We shall not in the desert stray,
We shall not full direction need,
Nor miss the providential way;
As far from danger as from fear,
While love, almighty love, is near.

Spirit at Work: Protector

Friday, August 5th, 2011

During the Pentecost season of the church year, Christians direct their attention to the important role that the person and work of the Holy Spirit plays in their own lives and in their life together as the church. Thus, in recent columns during this season we have been taking special note of the several dimensions of the Spirit’s work in the church. Each dimension reflects a unique aspect of what Christians are confessing each Sunday morning when they declare together the six words of the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” In this week’s column we focus on the Spirit’s work of protecting the church until the day Jesus returns to take her home to live with him forever, safe and secure.

Let’s face it: This world is no friend to Jesus Christ. Nor is it any friendlier to Jesus’ followers. Satan unleashes his most violent furies, his deadliest attacks, against those whose aim is to live with, like, and for Jesus, their Savior and Lord.

Aware of the evil one’s power marshaled against them and also of their own weakness to withstand his malignant, diabolical attacks, Christians (must) plead to God continually for help to withstand their deadly enemy. Regularly they (must) cry out to God with such words as are found in the venerable Heidelberg Catechism, a sixteenth-century confession of faith:

By ourselves we are too weak
to hold our own even for a moment.

And our sworn enemies—
the devil, the world, and our own flesh—
never stop attacking us.

And so, Lord,
uphold us and make us strong
with the strength of your Holy Spirit,
so that we may not go down to defeat
in this spiritual struggle,
but may firmly resist our enemies
until we finally win the complete victory.

(Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 127)

But Christians do not endure Satan’s attacks only as individual believers. The entire community of Christ, Jesus’ dearly loved bride, his church, also finds herself under relentless threat from a “world with devils filled” whose chief sworn purpose is to “undo” her. “Nowhere is the power of hell more strongly aimed than against the church where the aroma of Christian holiness fills the air,” to paraphrase St. Hereticus. Thus, the church, too, stands in urgent need of a strong shield to protect her, a fortress so sturdy and impregnable that only God can build and provide it.

Here the Spirit of the resurrected Jesus comes to the rescue. It is the Spirit who erects an armor and defense around believers and around the church. Thus, no matter how ferociously and relentlessly Satan keeps mounting assaults against Christians and the church, Jesus’ Spirit keeps them safe. The bride of Christ is secure from anything that can do her harm, from anyone bent on defiling her and tearing her away from him who cherishes her.

Knowing they are safe, Jesus’ followers can have steadiness of spirit. The words of St. Cyprian, third-century bishop of Carthage who was martyred for his faith, reflect the poise with which Christians of every age have been able to face heavy oppression:

This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden, under the shadow of these vines. But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide land, you know very well what I would see. Brigands on the highways, pirates on the seas; in the amphitheatres men murdered to please the applauding crowds; under all roofs misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it, I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy, which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians … and I am one of them.

The source of this sturdy confidence, this quiet tranquility and hope? It is anchored in the confident trust Jesus’ community puts in his promise to them: “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.”

Each Sunday when the Christian community gathers to worship God and to fellowship with one another, it hears that promise declared again. It listens anew to Jesus’ invitation to believe his promise. When believers reckon their lives—and their life together as a church—upon the trustworthiness of that promise, they discover that the fiercest, most hellish torments of the evil one are nothing. His rages cannot tear them from the Spirit’s strong embrace, nor banish them from their secure, Spirit-given sanctuary.

Having thus received weekly assurance from their Lord on Sunday morning, Jesus’ followers find hitherto undiscovered, untapped sources of strength to live boldly in the world. They discover anew, as they make their way through frequently confusing, often ominous and threatening happenings during the week, that he is holding them fast. They receive power to live out the bold words William Temple, then Archbishop of Canterbury, declared during the darkest days of World War II to his fellow believers:

When we worship God and serve him, Christ reigns;
When we know success or taste defeat, Christ reigns.
When we live, when we die, Christ reigns.
When history goes, and time shall be no more, Christ is king forever and ever.

And all of this because, until Jesus returns, his Spirit is serving as the church’s Protector, her Safety and her Strength.

Spirit at Work: Power to Make Our Lives Anew

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

When, as part of their Sunday worship, Jesus’ followers join to declare, “I believe in the Holy Spirit,” they’re saying a mouthful—a large mouthful. They’re making confession about who the Spirit is: third person of the Trinity, co-equal with the Father and the Son. But they’re saying even more too: they’re affirming that the Spirit is ceaselessly active, carrying on the Trinity’s work.

In the next several columns, under the heading “Spirit at Work,” we shall focus attention on the several activities of the Holy Spirit. We begin by highlighting one of the Spirit’s central workings: his making Jesus’ resurrection energy present to us, supplying us with “power to make our lives anew,” as hymn writer Margaret Clarkson put it.

Let’s be clear: On Easter morning history made a dramatic turnaround. God the Father pronounced, once and for all, his “Well done!” upon the mission of his Son. As a result, the entire universe—heaven and earth—became recreated, made new, set in a different—and right—direction. Jesus Christ had the final word—he was the final Word!

Let’s be equally clear: The application of that astonishing change to people’s lives—to Peter at Cornelius’ house, to Paul on the Damascus road, to a Philippian jailer, and to countless millions since who have believed that Jesus is risen—is ongoing work. Old habits die hard. Says John Calvin, “This restoration [to new life as God intends] does not take place in one moment or one day or one year; but through continual and sometimes even slow advances God wipes out in his elect the corruptions of the flesh, cleanses them of guilt, consecrates them to himself as temples, renewing all their minds to true purity that they may practice repentance throughout their lives” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. I, chpt. III).

If they are ever to be changed, fully and forever; if, as he calls them to do, they are to turn their lives into fitting sacrifices of thanks and praise (Rom. 12:1-2); if they are to live out their Lord’s promises and commands amid the concrete and fine-print circumstances of their lives (Col. 3:1ff.)—then Jesus’ followers shall surely need a fresh and inexhaustible supply of his resurrection presence and strength. Jesus Christ’s Spirit is the pipeline for that supply.

In a recent interview with Bob Abernethy, former NBC News reporter, Rev. Eugene Peterson (translator of The Message and author of some 30 books) offered trenchant comment on the sad state of religion in the western world and, more particularly, of Christianity in America. His words:

A lot of the language in the church—well, not just the church, in religion itself, has to do with trying to figure out the truth of things. What’s true? What’s true? And I’m not really interested in what’s true. I want to know if I can live it. I want to test it out…. A pastor in personal relationship is not just trying to find ways to make people feel good, loved, whatever. This is a kingdom life we are living. It has to do with salvation. It has to do with justice. It has to do with compassion…. We [pastors] are called to have people follow Jesus. We’re called to have people learn how to forgive their enemies. We’re called to show people that there is a way of life which has meaning beyond their salary or beyond how good they look.

The challenge facing American pastors is immense:

American culture is probably the least Christian culture that we’ve ever had because it is so materialistic and it’s so full of lies. The whole advertising world is just, it’s just intertwined with lies, appealing to the worst of the instincts we have. The problem is people have been treated as consumers for so long they don’t know any other way to live.

Thus Peterson pleads with pastors:

Introduce them to a living Christ, a Christ who makes life livable in the terms in which you are living—that everything in the gospel is livable, not just true.

Who can make the gospel not just worthy of being believed, but also capable of being lived? No one other than the Holy Spirit himself, the resurrected Presence of Jesus among us, Jesus’ vast resurrected Power now made available to us.

And thus every Sunday morning, in a declaration so counter-cultural to the independent spirit of the society in which they dwell, Christian worshipers say together: “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” In doing so, together they are expressing their dependence upon him. They are claiming that God’s Spirit abides in them, and that he’s there to help them go at life as God intends.

Jesus Yes—Church Yes!

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

For there is no other way to enter into life unless this mother [the Church] conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us at her breast, and lastly, unless she keep us under her care and guidance until, putting off mortal flesh, we become like the angels. Our weakness does not allow us to be dismissed from her school until we have been pupils all our lives.John CalvinInstitutes of the Christian Religion16th century

‘Jesus Yes—Church No!” That placard, held high by a lone student at a demonstration some years ago, expresses the thoughts and feelings of multitudes today about organized (Christian) religion. For them it’s “Spiritual Yes—Religion No.” And, “Yes to Jesus, but No—an emphatic No!—to everything connected with Church” (doctrine, ecclesiastical machinery, hierarchy, organization, etc).

In the Western hemisphere, especially in Europe and considerable sections of North America, vigorous contempt toward and sleepy disregard of the Christian church are widespread and increasing at an ever-accelerating rate. So widespread and rapid is the decline of organized Christianity in the West that the July-August, 2010, issue of The Atlantic magazine cites “The Demise of the Roman Catholic Church” as one of the fifteen leading trends in contemporary society.

For the last 2,000+ years of Christian history—ever since Jesus was born, crucified, and resurrected—his followers, in a kind of regular systolic-diastolic rhythm of the heart, have faithfully been gathering together on Sunday (to worship God and fellowship with one another), and then dispersing (to live and work in the world). Why this regular practice, by now centuries old? And why keep doing it today? In other words, why “Jesus Yes—Church Yes!”?

Well, because it”s a fact, declared in Scripture and verified in centuries of human experience, that no follower of Jesus ever grows optimally alone or in isolation from a society of fellow followers. We need to come together—to congregate, if you will. At history”s beginning God declared: “It is not good that man should be alone” (Gen. 2:18). Thus God intended humans to come together, to be in community with one another.

Thus, though the Christian faith is a personal religion, it is certainly not an individual religion. Yes, the Lord calls his children, one by one, to follow him; and they, in turn, respond one by one, to his call amid the specific, unique, and fine-print details of their lives. But never ought they then to remain as isolated individuals, separated from others who have heard and responded to God’s call. Rather, God intends followers of Jesus, his called-out people, the Church, to live out all of his “one another” commands—all 32 of them: “Pray for, encourage, speak truth to, love, be kind to, forgive, [and so on] one another.” All 32 imply the formation and existence of a community.

What a challenge this invitation presents to live counter-culturally! For our age is shot through with individualism, by what sociologist Robert Putnam calls a “Bowling Alone” mentality and practice.

The rhythm of coming together/dispersing/coming together/dispersing is the pattern God set for followers of his Son, Jesus Christ. Which is why

  • • Scripture commands: “Do not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encourage one another” (Heb. 10:25).
  • • Cyprian, a third-century Christian leader, declared: “Extra ecclesiam nulla salus” (“Outside the Church No Salvation”).
  • • John Calvin called the church the very “society of Christ” into whose fellowship God has deposited the rich treasure of the gospel.
  • • Christians, both worldwide and throughout history, gather to confess, “I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints”—and then to sing, “I Love Your Church, O Lord.”

Lone-Rangerism is “out” when it comes to living as Christ intends. Faithful Christians raise the banner: “Jesus Yes—Church Yes!”

Prayer

Jesus, with your church abide; be our Savior, Lord, and Guide, while on earth our faith is tried: Lord, our Savior, hear us.

Thomas Benson Pollock1871
|