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“So, after 2,000 years, how do you think he’s doing?”

That was a question posed in an article I read recently about living in the relational church. It was referring to the time where Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” The question was posed by the author of the article to various individuals and groups of church leaders across the country.

You can imagine their initial response. 🙂

We can look a few hundred feet up the road and see four, large, stone examples of how he’s doing. Jesus is apparently good at building a completely splintered, divided, church that likes to erect cold, lifeless buildings in his honor. That’s not to mention all of the gossip, back-biting, positioning and other games we play inside those edifices.

No, if that’s your idea of what his church is, you’d have to start making up some excuses for his work. It’s not looking so good here.

But that is just evidence that those structures, both physical and organizational, have nothing to do with the church Jesus said he was going to build! Yes, there are members of his church living and even thriving within the confines of those systems, but they are not the source of the Life. The structures are only doomed to fail. Good can come from them, but Jesus did not say I am going to commission a few people to build my church based on their gifts and talents and leadership skills. He said, “I will build my church. He will. That’s not up to us.

I really like the article. We have mentioned this author before. Wayne Jacobsen really seems to be able to say what I have been thinking for a long time. Some things he says remind me of discussions I had with my fellow church staff mates when I first left Bible college and was working full time with a healthy, growing church. Even though we were doing it so well, there were just major flaws I could see in the system. Our hearts were great, but the focus of our implementation just seemed to be slightly (or greatly) askew.

I would encourage you to read, if you are so inclined, the articles he has posted on this subject. He says it well, and perhaps will give you some food for thought. Life with God is so much more than attending meetings or trying to woo our friends into joining us at them. The church is so much more.

Yes, his church is alive and well. We were privileged to meet another part of his body here just last night. I am praying that God would continue to connect us to the people he wants to connect us with. That he would build his church, and that we would follow his lead and be the part of his body he designed us to be.

It really is his church.

If you’d like to read the article, click the link below. Perhaps I will post links to his other articles in this series as well. I have read the first two so far, and both have been excellent.

Living in the Relational Church – BodyLife July 99