"The Church is called to gather regularly to display God’s life through the ministry of every believer. How? Not by religious services where a few people perform before a passive audience. But in open-participatory meetings where every member of the believing priesthood functions, ministers, and expresses the living God in an open-participatory atmosphere (1 Cor.14:26; 1 Pet.2:5; Heb.10:24-25)."
- Frank Viola, excerpt from his book From Eternity to Here
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Let me add for clarification, that all of this described above (i.e. a congregation, and gathering on the Lordsday, and full-participatory worship) should be led, directed and/or overseen by a godly, publicly acknowledged leader(s) who are men who have a historical record of manifesting godly character, and are gifted with discipling and shepherding (1 Timothy 3.1-7).
But what that "leading, directing and/or overseeing" doesn't mean is lectures up-front by one "specialist" while everyone else is passively unengaged facing straight ahead in their theater seating staring at their neighbor's head!
It also doesn't mean "time-card" Christian life where you come on Lordsday, punch in your time card and "put in your time" because all that "religious stuff" is what you pay the pastor for...right? No, dear Christian, this is what we all should strenuously and deliberately be doing.
Now, it DOES means alot of things that we've lost (and will ultimately recover), but the programmatic, bureaucracy of the institutional Church is not one of them as it is drying up the souls of the saints. And, as you've maybe picked up on, the children of the Church are seeing all this and are leaving in droves because they don't want to have anything to do with it!
Do you see youself as one of the leaders you described?
ReplyDeleteNo, but I've met a few that are.
ReplyDelete