We Can Do It!

So Let's You And I Agree ...

Maybe you didn’t know this, but I’ve attended lots of church services.  Quite possibly, I’ve even joined in with your church fellowship a time or two.  It recently dawned on me at a workshop I was part of, however, that though I’ve attended many church meetings, been a member of many churches, been a leader in many churches, and been affiliated and connected to many churches, I had glossed over maybe the most basic question about church:  “What is it?”

Oh sure, I studied church stuff in college and seminary, I’ve written articles about church and its’ stuff, and I’ve read many Many MANY books about church. But, what is a church anyway?

Some time ago a group of people gathered in my home and after eating dinner, and sharing our stories with each other and praying together, one of our friends said, “Wow, this is kinda like church, isn’t it?” And it dawned on me that she was right. But only "kinda" like a church, I thought.

Well, recently at a workshop I was participating in this question was asked, “What is the definition of a church?”  And my ears perked up as I listened to the discussion carefully, and did it ever get the juices flowing. There were all kinds of answers, and they kind of all got shrunk down into these basic elements that the group decided must be present in order to have a church:

   1.  A group of believers gathering together regularly
   2.  The group considers their gathering a church
   3.  There are qualified elders in charge, and Bible trained teachers teaching
   4.  The practice of baptism and communion took place, as well as church discipline if needed (there were a variety of views on this, of course)
   5.  There should be a mutually agreed-on set of doctrines and beliefs, and a constitution or set of by-laws for doing the work of the church

I think the discussion might have gone on forever, except the facilitator finally asked the question that sort of stalled everything, “Well, is anything missing from our list?” And for a few moments there was silence. As I looked at the list I thought to myself that these are all good qualities for any church to have, and most churches I’ve been connected to would actually meet these standards. But WAS something missing?

And then out of the blue, one of the guys shouted, “Jesus is missing!” It was as if somebody lit a match to our discussion, and we all tried to talk over each other to excuse or explain why our answers had not included Jesus. Then the facilitator told us a story of how one of his theological mentors had expounded to him once that Jesus is assumed in these definition lists because it's believers who are gathered. His response to his mentor was simply, “Why would we assume Jesus’ presence but make sure that a qualified elder is present?”

Assumptions, we make them all the time. And I've come to believe that making this assumption demonstrates a serious problem. As my friend Neil Cole wrote, “The church is often more about what we bring to the table than what God does.”

Because when it comes to church, aren’t many of us asking the wrong questions? We ask people What church do you go to? How big is your church? Where is your church? What kind of music do you have at your church? What denomination is your church? Who is your pastor? and on and on. But when do we ask one another what we're doing for Jesus, and whether he is even present in what we’re doing? Is Jesus in charge of our life? Is Jesus the Lord of our small groups, our wedding celebrations, our dinner engagements, our back-yard barbecues, our company’s conference room schedule?

Was it not the Lord himself who said to Peter that the church belonged to him – it’s his church – and that the church must be on the offense in the world:  "I will build MY church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it" (Matt 16:18b)? (Gates are not offensive weapons, are they?)

In Neil’s book, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens, he counsels a young church planter with this admonition:  “Don’t do anything until you are sure Jesus is with you.  Like Moses, tell the Lord, ‘I’m not going to take one step forward unless you go first.’ … and, Be angry at the fact that the world can ignore Jesus without fear of consequence."

There are people all around us that don’t want to enter into any church building, and in fact they don’t want to know anything about any church.  They don’t care.  But they might go with you to a Gathering of Men breakfast as your guest.  All you have to do is ask Jesus to go before you go to invite them, ask him to be the Lord of your invitation on his behalf, and ask him to guide you in his love.

What church stuff matters to Jesus?  Well, he said, “if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven” and “where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matt. 18:19, 20).  This sounds like Jesus’ short list for answering the question, “What is a church?”

Today, you and I can agree that you are going to ask Jesus to lead you to someone to invite as your guest to the men's breakfast at the Torrance Marriott, or the Pasadena Hilton, or the Anaheim Phoenix Club, and they are going to say “yes.”  And today Jesus will have his Father make it happen!  Because the only church size that matters is that two of us agree on something in Jesus’ name, and two or three of us gather together in Jesus’ name.

That’s what we’re doing today.  We can do it!

Sincerely yours,

Paul Huddle, Director