Thursday, May 03, 2018

Purpose of the church (8)

Thank you very much for reading this blog series about the purpose of the church and also for your valuable comments.

"The purpose of the church is simple, namely that everyone gets to know Jesus well" I wrote in my previous blog post. Simple maybe, but apparently not so easy to implement. In personal conversations I often discover that people can faithfully go to church for years and years and yet do not know Jesus personally. That is quite tragic and I really hope and pray that we will all experience a refreshing renewal and change in the way we do/are church.

Of course, we can not solely expect that from leadership (sometimes they have no clue either), we are in this together. Let us take a look again at the words in Ephesians 4: 11-13. This time, for the sake of clarity, I used the Good News translation and cut it into pieces because the sentences are very long:
  • It was he [Jesus] who “gave gifts to people”; he appointed some to be apostles, others to be prophets, others to be evangelists, others to be pastors and teachers.
  • He did this to prepare all God's people for the work of Christian service
  • in order to build up the body of Christ.
  • And so we shall all come together to that oneness in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God
  • we shall become mature people, reaching to the very height of Christ's full stature.

Wow, we shall become mature people (a perfect man the NKJV says) attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. What a wonderful purpose. I want that! Even if I have to sit in a pew for a while :)

I suggest that we all compare the above list (the Word of God) with our church setting and customs and ask ourselves some critical questions: Is there a five fold leadership available in my church/congregation to prepare me to serve, so that the church/congregation can grow, and do we get to know Christ better? And finally .... am I on my way to maturity?

I sincerely hope that we will be church, with a purpose!

5 comments:

  1. I want this kind of maturity, too, Marja. Sometimes the growing pains are intense, but I believe when we see Jesus face to face and he says, "Well done, good and faithful servant," we'll realize how worth it everything was.

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    1. Hm, yes, growing pains... but that means we're moving :)

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  2. Marja: I also want this kind of maturity. The time issue has kept me form joining in and helping those at church in the various ministries. Also, some health and physical limitations cause me to shy away from a lot of activities. But, I can still pray and donate to the different ministries.

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    1. There is something to do for everyone Cecelia, God knows our limitations. I am sure you are a blessing to many people!

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    2. This is lovely. keep it up

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Thanks for your visit, it is my hope and prayer that this post was an encouragement to you! Feel free to leave a comment.