I want to see the Church Part 3 (6-10)

1. I want to see the Church led by the Holy Spirit.
   
   It's so tempting to listen to the people. There's a temptation to run the church as a democracy where the majority rules. In John 3 Jesus taught, "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit." The majority rules mentality sure seems to run a high risk of flesh giving birth to flesh.
   
   
2. I want to see the Church empowered by the Holy Spirit.
   I believe Jesus Christ intended for us to be a force to be reckoned with. In the promise of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said we would receive POWER (read Acts 1), and we read of powerful and miraculous displays of the Holy Spirit through the disciples in the early church (read the rest of Acts). I almost titled this point "I want to see the church practicing the spiritual gifts," but I'm afraid much of us have bought into what I might call "charisphobia" where we've seen abuse of the the gifts. If that's you, please refer back to point one. I want to see us LED BY the Holy Spirit. In any abuse of the gifts I have witnessed, it boils down to a person seeking to lead the Holy Spirit (impose His move) rather than being LED BY (respond to His move).
   I once heard a prominent youth pastor say to a large gathering of youth pastors, "Teach on the Spiritual gifts. I know some of you are from denominations or backgrounds that would say otherwise, but the spiritual gifts are biblical... of course, that may be why some of you aren't teaching the gifts!"
   
   
3. I want to see the Church as ONE.
   Jesus wanted it. In fact he prayed for it... "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. " (John 17:20-21)
   Sometimes I wonder if doctrine is the biggest obstacle getting in the way of truly seeing a major outbreak of revival. We must be one in Jesus Christ. Is that not enough? I think it can be when the Holy Spirit is in charge.
   
   
4. I want to see the Church emphasize sin holistically.
   We love to emphasize the ten commandments in the church, and we should. But did you ever notice how the majority of the commandments are "Do Nots". In fact 8 of the 10 commandments tells us not to do something. 2 (honor the sabbath and honor your father and mother) are "do" commandments.
   About 2 years ago, I was introduced to the thought of sins of commission and sins of omission.
   Sins of commission would be those things we "do" where God's challenge is "do not."
   Sins of ommission would be those things we "do not" do where God has challenged us to "do."
   In fact, if you really consider the 10 commandments, they are all rooted in the greatest commandment that Jesus laid out in Matthew 22:37-40 (Love God, Love your neighbor), which is a challenge against sins of omission. I want to see us challenging each other toward both what we ought to be doing as well as what we ought not to be doing.
   
   
5. I want to see the Church known for what we're for as well as what we're against.
   This ties right in with my thought above, but wouldn't it be great if a nonbeliever were to look at the Church and say, "Oh ya, you're those people that value love, grace and forgiveness. You're the ones who believe it is important to look after orphans and widows."
   At the same time, I want it to be known that the church stands against pornography, abortion , and homosexuality. Yet, we're against pornography because we are for valuing people and having a healthy view of sex. We're against abortion because we are for life. We're disagree with homosexuality because we are for God's design for relationships.
   
   
   

I Want to See the Church Part 2 (1-5)

Here we go. I'll take about 5 at a time. Again, to review what I'm going for here, read this post.

1. I want to see the Church compelled by love.
   
   I want holiness. I want truth. I want sound doctrine. I want reverence. Above all I want to see us driven by love. I don't mean love in its limited definition we often give. I mean love as God defines it (see I Corinthians 13, I John 4:7-21, I John 3:16) . In fact, as you look at those aspects mentioned above that I'd like to see (holiness, truth, sound doctrine, reverence), I don't think they can exist correctly unless compelled by love.
   
   
2. I want to see the Church existing as much, if not more, for it's nonmembers as it is for it's members.
   
   It's an endless conversation I read about in articles, books and blogs. Does the church exist for it's constituency or those it's trying to reach. Especially clouding the discussion is the more recent house church movement and other reactions against the seeker sensitive movement of the 80s and 90s on the purpose of the Worship Service. I really don't care. In fact, I just want the church caring for each other while understanding that we are Christ's Ambassadors seeking to help reconcile the world toward God.
   
   
3. I want to see the Church integrated.
   This is not a multicultural statement (although that will likely come at some point). I'm talking about a the root word of integrity. This means that we would...
   

   • The beliefs of those claiming Christ are being integrated into our every day life.
     
   • We follow Jesus in public when many are looking and in private when nobody is looking.
   • Monday-Saturday are just as much an act of worship as Sunday.
   • We become the noncompartmentalized (my spell checker tells me I just made up a word) people that those outside the Church are hoping exist.
     
     
4. I want to see the Church repent well.
   To follow up on integrity. I don't want to see us perfect. In fact, I'm fairly convinced a faulty notion among the church is that the cure to hypocrisy is our perfection. There's one problem with that... we are not nor will we ever be perfect this side of heaven. I believe the cure to hypocrisy is that church owning up to it's hypocrisy when we see it.
   Again, I believe those outside the Church are not needing more examples of people who pretend like they've got it all together. I believe they are looking for examples of people who somehow can find peace, purpose and wholeness in Christ while still knowing they don't have it together.
   
   
5. I want to see the Church wrecked by Jesus.
   In John 6, after some tough teaching , Jesus turns to the 12 disciples and asks them if they're going to leave. I LOVE PETER'S RESPONSE..."Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
   Is the Derry paraphrase, "Jesus, I'm screwed. You've wrecked my life. I now have no choice but to follow you."
   Paul considered everything else "rubbish" (he actually uses a Greek term for excrement) compared to knowing Jesus Christ.
   I want to see the Church so bent toward pursuing after Christ that anything and everything else leaves an emptiness. Where, even if the desire is there to abandon our faith, we know we can't, because we know that we know that HE is the only answer. What would the world look like if all those who currently claim the name Christian were to truly take on this attitude? These are the questions that start to mess with me (in a good way)
   

Tonight's thoughts flow out of my time of meditation and personal reflection over 2 Corinthians 5:11-21.

I Want to See The Church: Part 1

On Wednesday Night of our Fanning the Flame series (3/10/10), Karl Black did a message entitled, "We the Church." It was a challenge to us as believers to embrace the reality that...

The Church is God's vehicle to changing the world.
We, as believers are the Church (newsflash, the Church is not a building).
THEREFORE - We are God's plan to change the world.

I have been wrestling with this one for the past few days, considering the Church (big "C"). As a product, this has gotten me into both prescriptive and descriptive mode on what I see in the church. Let me explain more simply...

Prescriptive Mode: How I think things should be in the church.
Descriptive Mode: How I see things are in the church.

In several posts that will follow, I will be highlighting what I want to see the Church doing. As I list, a few things to keep in mind...

• I'm going to stick to prescriptive mode.
• As I do so, I will do my best to stay away from descriptive mode.
  
• As I stick to prescriptive mode, I will not be speaking of A church specifically but THE CHURCH as a whole.
• As a pastor in A church, you could be tempted to read into my thoughts as a desire to make a statement for or against my church. Please do not. There will be aspects highlighted that are strong, aspects that are weak, and aspects that are non-existent in the list I share. I will be seeking to avoid any mention or examples of how this is being fleshed out in the specific fellowship I'm connected to.
  
• It will not be an exhaustive list.
  
• It will not be a "programmatic" list (I want to see drums on the stage, a strong Children's Ministry, etc.)

Tomorrow we get rolling. Enjoy!