from January 16, 2011 prayer update

A week back, I began teaching a 16 part series on the book of Ephesians in one of the adult Bible fellowships in my home church. The series is titled “BE the Church”.

We all know that the local church is NOT a building. Nor is it an event (like Sunday morning corporate worship). Although frequently our vocabulary (and perhaps our practice) is not always consistent with what we know to be true.

We (the believers) are the Church, both in its local expression and in its universal expression. We are the Church 24x7, not just for a few hours on Sunday mornings at a particular location. As a matter of fact, the Church should be at its best when it not gathered together at a specific location, but when it is dispersed in a community, seriously engaging in its calling.

The church building is NOT the “house of the Lord”. We are where God has chosen to take up His residence. “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” I Corinthians 3:16. God indwells and empowers His people, not bricks and mortar.

Rick Warren, in his book The Purpose Driven Church, describes five core functions of the Church: worship, community, discipleship, service, and outreach. Interestingly these are the same five core functions that he describes for the individual believer in his best seller, The Purpose Driven Life. Why? Because we are the Church.

Although there are five core functions, there is only one core mission for the Church – outreach (with both local and global components to it). God has called the Church (you and me) to seek and save the lost, in our natural spheres of influence and among the least reached globally.

I have seen a T-Shirt that reads “the church has left the building” – I love it! There is an apostolic (literally “sent ones”) role that did not cease 19 centuries ago. God has called every believer to GO. To embrace and be sent out to meaningfully join with Him in His mission.

Ephesians, like Paul’s other epistles, has two major sections. The first (chapters 1-3) I have titled “the high calling of Christ’s Church”. The second (chapters 4-6), “daily behavior and important relationships in Christ’s Church.”

Paul begins with the conceptual (doctrine / theology about the Church). We need to understand conceptually who we are and why we exist. But he then shifts to the practical, what should our daily lives look like as we live out these truths? Paul talks about things like unity in the Body, the priority of equipping every believer to be a worker, the process of life transformation, the importance of personal holiness, wise and Spirit empowered living, and spiritual warfare. He also discusses what it means to be the Church in our marriages, in our parenting, and in the workplace.

Great stuff! Are you playing church or have you seriously embraced BEing the Church? There is a BIG difference.