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Tonight we will discuss last weeks lesson “The Shift from Church Growth to Kingdom Growth.” Many of us grew up being taught that the “church” and the “kingdom” were the same. Seemingly, we read right over verses such as Luke 17:21 which stated “the kingdom is within you.” We even were taught to rephrase Jesus’ prayer to “Your kingdom HAS come” thinking that church and kingdom were the same (at least I was). Jesus only mentioned church twice in His recorded ministry but continually referred to the kingdom. We’ve developed our view of the church and made it something God never intended (at least that’s my opinion) and have spent very little time trying to understand what this “kingdom” Jesus talked about was. Two very simple definitions: “church” means the called out, the gathered, the gathering, the meeting together. “Kingdom” is when God makes a decisive intervention in a person’s life. God’s kingdom becomes real to us when we decide to become “living sacrifices” by being transformed (Romans 12:2). The church gets to be God’s partner in His redeeming work in the world. The church is not the destination, the kingdom is. I know I haven’t articulated this as well as someone else could, but the bottom line is that we’ve spent far too much energy, time, and money on trying to build the church and not on trying to build the kingdom. That’s why we’re so frustrated when someone says “the church culture” has collapsed. People in the present generations are not wanting to join what they see as the “traditional church” but they do want God in their lives. Thus, we must move from thinking about “church growth” to seeking “kingdom growth.” What do you think?
3 Comments
I agree that the church is not the sum total of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is where God is and reigns. The Church is the bride of Christ and consists of all of the saved. Both are part of the divine plan of God for His creation. I think we have misunderstood, at times, what we are reading in scripture.
If this man is correct; if the postmoderns indeed are not into “church culture”, then a cataclysmic change is taking place with serious consequences that need to be addressed. What does this new culture look like? How do we work within that new culture to carry out God’s plan for us to (A) Love Him with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves, and (B) Go and make disciples of all nations?
A practical example of that would be funding and financing of the organism we now call the church. If people will not gather together in a big meeting and pass the collection plate, how will we finance ministerial staff, missions, classes, etc? Or in this new culture, will we even have paid ministerial staff, institutional missions efforts, and Bible classes?
There needs to be some real thinking here that is outside of the box and some bold people who are not afraid to implement those thoughts. Am I one of them? I don’t know yet.
Jay, Those are very good questions. I find I am limited in my understanding of all that God intended for the church by being part of the institution we have created that we call “the church.” Do we need the institution in order to 1) love God and, 2) go make disciples? Should we do that differently than we do? Was it in God’s plan to have “ministerial staffs”, “Bible classes”, “multi-million dollar building complexes”, etc. How could we meet regularly without a building? How could we evangelize? How could we study and teach God’s Word? How could we “release God’s people” to the work of ministry outside of the framework we’ve created? I feel we need to reexamine scripture without the “blinders” of how we’ve always done these things and maybe we’ll see afresh the inspiration in what God has said to us from scripture. Is the Bible indeed a book for all time or have we limited it by saying we have to fit it’s teachings into structures we’re comfortable with. Good questions, indeed! Outside the box thinking, quite possibly.
Thanks to both of you for sharing the class content and your thoughts. Good questions, absolutely. Does it make me uncomfortable? Yes – in my case. But that did not hold Jesus back. I personally know Christians who are questioning the structure we have put in place to carry out those functions Jay pointed out. Methods seems to be what we are talking about here. What is effective for one group in one day in one place may not be so for some other group in some other day, or in the same day, and the same or different places, and all pemutations of these 3 elements! An example: Would I say these things in a classroom situations? Probably not, but electronically I am fearless! Scott, is there a book associated with this class? I may want to purchase.