Church, asking the right questions.

It all stated with my discontent with church in America, my heart longed from something more, I found my self in total discontent with church, my spirit cried out for something more. It was as if it knew that what I have experienced was not the way it was to be, so I studied every verse about the church to get a picture in my mind of what the first church was like, and I wrote out a paper, a blueprint of what the Church looked like described in the N.T, the church started by Jesus with His first disciples. I quickly discovered that the church blueprint I had written out from the scriptures did not match the church I see in America. The one stated by Jesus, modeled in the N.T. is not found in the traditional American church. But what I did find in the scriptures matched my hearts longing; it was what I ached for inside my soul. In the course of my studying and seek the Lord about His church, the process of my seeking out what is the church, the Lord gave me a greater vision of Himself and His church than what I have seen in the church in America. I feel that what I have discovered is that the Lord is calling true believers out of the consumer church, out of the religious church and into the Christ-centered community of Kingdom life He started with His disciples two thousand plus years ago.

In my dialog with others who are on the same page, fellow church planters, those whom their souls also cry out for the church Jesus started, the one we see in the bible, feel the same call of the Lord to His people and His church; I have found my discontentment in the hearts of so many others.

I agree with one of my fellow pilgrims in the quest of the church we see in scripture that we are asking the wrong questions about the broken and flawed imitation of the church we see, it is not the one that Jesus built, the one the disciples continued building and spread across the known world in the first century. We must begin asking the right questions. We must seek to allow the Lord to exchange our old paradigms for new ones, we must not as the scriptures say pouring New wine into old wine skins. This sort of revolution will only come by us honestly asking the Lord to give us the right questions to ask to reveal to us the true knowledge of Himself and His bride, the church, and to be willing, open to, submissive to, to receive, accept and put into practice what He would revel to us, without discrimination to our personal wants and personal vision as to what it is to be and who He is.

How is it possible for us revolutionaries to conquer the old paradigms? Scripture is the key because Christ is the key within them that unlocks the church. The written word of God reveals the living Word of God, Jesus; it unveils the mysteries of God, and the mystery of the Church. Unfortunately too often believers stop short of their purpose for the church, they are too nearsighted, me-sighted in only seeing their ticket to haven as the sole purpose of salvation and church as nothing more than a dispenser of religious consumer goods for their own pleasure and entertainment. And to often even the revolutionaries stop short too, they are in such a hurry to get out of the old in into the new, that they ask the wrong questions thereby getting the wrong answers, resulting to leaving out Jesus also. They pursue other passions, things other than Jesus and His real church as well. The answer is not found in a method, movement, or post-modern emerging, emergent postmodern philosophies or a set of new programs to join. The problem is not the scriptures, Jesus or Church itself. But the turning away from the scriptures, the real Jesus and what they say and want Church to be. The answer is not found in purpose-driven products, you’re Best Life theology or some other religious gimmick. It is found in Christ; He is the answer to our problems in the church today, it is in the scriptures that we find the blueprint for the church not in culture or the latest guru of the post-modern believers and their philosophies. We do not need to reinvent Jesus, we need to seek out and embrace the real Jesus and reinstate Him as Head of the Church. We do we need to reinvent the church but rather to reinstate the original Church, that is follow the model of the church set before us in scripture. And ask the right questions of Jesus as to how do we get out of Your way, and follow what we see in the first century church. So, in order to see a biblical image of Church we must ask questions which are biblically sound instead of denominationally, culturally, me-centered or emerging that are missed colored with bias and misconception and bad theology.

Doing what Jesus would do. hanging with Marilyn Manson

In a resent interview Newsboys' guitarist Paul Colman was asked which mainstream artist he would like to tour with, he answered Marilyn Manson, not the answer the typical Christian would have expected, or an acceptable answer the American Church would want from a Christina artist.

But he had it right, that is an answer that every Christ-Like person should both expected and applauded, Paul has it right, that is the typical answer Jesus would have given. Because He hung out with the worst of the sinners. That is who He came to reach, every Christ-Like person should want access to people like Marilyn Manson and his followers, the chance to take the light of hope into their world of darkness. To expose them to the gospel and person of Jesus Christ, take the Kingdom of God near them to see and touch and experience in real time, real life, Jesus and the Gospel in us lived out before them, experience the love, mercy and forgiveness of God. To take God’s reconciliation and restoration to them in a tangible way, a real person transformed by the Gospel, love, forgiveness and mercy of God.

Paul Colman has it right, going to and being among the sinners is where we should live, be found daily, hanging out with prostitutes, drug uses and dealers, thieves, hanging out in the pubs having a beer with the prodigals, with the downtrodden, the oppressed and the outcast, taking the gospel, the light into the darkest of places.

That is doing what Jesus would do.