Last week, I shared a book that I recently read titled Five Challenges for the Once and Future Church. The book was a quick read and offered good insight into some of the challenges that many churches are facing. While the book itself isn’t a newly published work, it does offer insight that can prove to be helpful as we navigate this new landscape of church in the 21st Century.
The first challenge was that of ownership of the local church. The gist is as followers of Jesus we need to claim ownership of the message of the gospel and get that message out of the building of the local worship centers. Feel free to read more about challenge one here.
The second challenge was that of structure. In this section, the author deals with financial, political, and governing structures of denominations as well as local congregations. The point being that a shift in focus is necessary to continue moving the church forward in the world today. More about this one can be found here.
The third challenge is about passion! So often the worshipping community lacks zeal or passion for the things of God. We sing and we talk but it appears that we’re simply devoid of emotion when it comes to the work that God is doing in the world around us. We’ve spend countless manpower hours and even more dollars organizing the church around certain structures, correcting of errors, and protecting good order, but we’ve neglected the matters of the Spirit.
Not too long ago, I was approached by a worshipper asking where the Holy Spirit was in the message that Sunday morning. She wasn’t asking where is the Holy Spirit in the building but why didn’t I mention the Spirit more. Perhaps we neglect the Spirit matters because they’re abstract at best and often chaotic at worst. In our well-ordered world, we like things to be in place so chaos is not often welcomed.
But think back to the events of Pentecost, or creation for that matter. There was chaos! There was nothing sensical about the matter. At Pentecost the disciples were hiding because they were afraid of being killed, when the Holy Spirit filled the room and sent them out chattering in foreign languages. This had to be one the most chaotic moments of the early church. But through that human mess and chaos God worked a life changing movement of grace and truth. Through our chaos God brought order and truth and all that is right.
You see the issue is that we spend so much time ordering things that the work isn’t always getting done. Perhaps we could trust in the Spirit of God to make order out of our chaos as we just live the Jesus life wherever we go. When we’re so wrapped up in the patterns that we’ve created, we are not able to be moved by God. He typically doesn’t move in the manner that we desire him to move. He calls us to be passionate for him. He wants there to be a burning fire within us, not a fire for order or chaos, but a fire for the weightier matters of salvation and forgiveness to a lost people.
If we truly want to see God’s kingdom grow in the world, it’s time to let the Spirit do the leading. Let him take us where He wants us to go. This very possibly could mean going into unordered patterns for a time.
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