Well I had promised that this next article would be about alternative ways of forming church. Then I realised that I probably ought to say a little about what the church is for, what it is meant to be, before talking about anything else – so here goes.
The key to understanding the purpose of church is found in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. We have already seen that church grows out of the Kingdom as it is established.The kingdom of God does many things, and one of them is to challenge people to repent (turn round, change direction) and submit to the Lordship of the King Jesus. Those who accept that challenge become the church. The Church has the dual function of extending the Kingdom and being the place of family to those who accept the Kingdom call. Genesis 1and 2 explains what God’s plan is.
Genesis 1 v 1 is the beginning of the story, but a lot has taken place before we get to verse 2, and the bible doesn’t give us lots of details. The main thing that we know for sure is that somewhere between verse 1 and 2, Satan, who was a created being, had rebelled against his Creator – God. What follows is God’s plan to deal with Satan’s rebellion.
God could have dealt with Satan by Himself, at a stroke, but He decided to defeat him using created beings – human beings. So, in Genesis 1 verse 2, He brings order into the chaotic state of the world. We assume the chaos was caused by the upheaval of Satan’s rebellion. God begins to set the scene for his response to Satan. He establishes (re-establishes?) order on the earth, sets in place day and night etc, creates plants, animals and then created man and woman with the instruction to populate the earth and rule over it.
We know from elsewhere in scripture that Satan’s rebellion was based on his desire to be like God. In Isaiah 66 v 1 God says “Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool”. Is it possible that having tried to seize God’s throne and been banished from heaven, Satan now wanted to take God’s footstool from Him? Adam and Eve were given a mandate which ran directly counter to that ambition. They had been given God’s footstool, it was theirs to rule over on His behalf. They were to cultivate it, transform it and they were to do it in partnership with God. They were to rule over the earth and every creature on the earth, including the creature Satan. And if that was His plan, then it was easily achievable, possible.
We all know what happened next. Satan desperate not to be defeated by mere humans, tricked Adam and Eve out of their inheritance. He persuaded them to disobey God, and in so doing, to put their trust in him rather than God. And God’s response? Ditch the plan? Think of something else to do instead? Certainly not. God, being perfect, only needs to come up with Plan A. He has no need to scrat around to patch together a Plan B
The Godhead (by that we mean the Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit) announce “Plan A stands, and this is how We are going to do it….. We are promising that a descendant of Adam will crush Satan’s head.(Genesis 3 v 15) That will be one of Us, Jesus the Son. And in the meantime, We are going to have a nation on the earth that will be Ours, that will demonstrate to the rest of the world what it is like when a people partner with Us. Out of that nation will come the One who will crush Satan and save people from their sins, destroy the power of Sin and death – and much more besides. He will gather disciples whom He will leave to continue what He started. They will……..and this is the part where the church has got confused….
Some of the church have assumed that from here on in there is a sort of Plan B in place. Here’s what their Plan B looks like on a good day. The disciples inaugurated the Church. The purpose of the Church now is to save sinners, to rescue as many as possible, and hold on to them until Jesus returns to take us home to safety out of this awful place. To pursue Plan B many churches put a lot of effort into rescuing the lost – and holding on to them; keeping them connected and safe. On a bad day Plan B looks like not doing a lot about the rescuing bit, just focussing on the holding on bit. And you know what? It is right to reach the lost. We must do it. But Plan A was much more than just rescuing the lost and warehousing them till Jesus comes back. Plan A still stands.
Plan A is to cultivate and transform the earth in partnership with God and in so doing enforce Jesus’s victory over Satan. Parts of the church, and many notable individuals, have grasped this truth over the last 2000 years. Much of the Church has not. Just to be clear, I am not talking about theocracy where the Church rules politically, or where Church and state function in partnership.
Plan A requires more than churches who act as harvesting and warehousing facilities – an organisation that plucks people from society to save them. Plan A requires a Kingdom that will grow and replicate in society, permeating society, transforming it. Not just a “social gospel” and neither just an “evangelism “ gospel. As often, it’s not a case of ‘either/or’ but a case of ‘both/and’. The Church extends the Kingdom, lives the Kingdom, preaches the Kingdom, and as people respond to the call of the Kingdom, they become part of the church and in turn they too live the Kingdom, preach and extend the Kingdom. The expansion of the Kingdom in society is what fulfils the mandate we were given in Genesis chapter 1 – to cultivate and transform and to disenfranchise the enemy Satan.
If we think our job is to maintain churches or plant churches whose reason for existence is simply to save sinners and hold on to them safely until Jesus returns, then we are choosing our own Plan B instead of His plan A – not unlike Adam and Eve, trusting in something other than God’s plan,
If our focus is on Jesus coming back to rescue us from this awful place, we have sadly missed the point. Part of our purpose is to put our effort into making it a place that is no longer awful – not to be pining for the rescue helicopter to get us out of here and leave the rest to get on with things. We are the people with the answers, in partnership with the God who has all the answers.
I hope this doesn’t shock you, but Jesus doesn’t do abortions. He is not coming for a church that hasn’t done what He set for it to do. He is not going to abort His plan. Apart from the fact that we are to preach the gospel to every nation, tribe and tongue, what about the prayer He gave us to pray – Your Kingdom come on earth as in heaven? To think that all that means is to have lots of churches in every nation is to miss what the Kingdom of God really is. Jesus’ Kingdom has got to be felt and known far beyond the walls of our churches. It has to permeate society. It must be possible because Jesus told us to pray for it, and more than that, He told us in Matthew 6 v 33 to seek it, to pursue it. We are in the world for the world. Get that wrong, and we get church wrong.
When the Church begins to fulfil this mandate, she become mature, fully formed and develops into the Bride that Jesus has been waiting for since before time began.
Church is out there 