What If Jesus Was Serious about the Church? by Skye Jethani

Author:Skye Jethani [Jethani, Skye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 2022-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

READ MORE: Luke 7:18–23; Hebrews 10:23–25

IF JESUS WAS SERIOUS … THEN THE CHURCH GATHERS FOR COMMUNITY, NOT FOR A CONCERT.

MANY HAVE COME TO SEE the church primarily as an event rather than as a community. It is something they attend rather than something they are. It’s like professional sports except the ball is replaced with a Bible. It’s like a Broadway production except the performer is a pastor rather than a tenor. It’s like a rock concert except the feeling of euphoria is attributed to the Spirit rather than the secondhand smoke.

What all of these experiences share in common is the general passivity of the audience. They gather to be entertained, informed, or amused by the performers on the stage or the field. Very little is expected of those gathered other than a financial contribution via ticket or tithe. Cheers or applause is welcomed, but everyone knows the audience is not essential to the gathering. The show could just as easily go on without them.

Sadly, this consumer ethic of passive amusement has deeply influenced much of the modern church and its gatherings. As Sally Morganthaler writes:

We are not producing worshipers in this country. Rather, we are producing a generation of spectators, religious onlookers lacking, in many cases, any memory of a true encounter with God, deprived of both the tangible sense of God’s presence and the supernatural relationship their inmost spirits crave.20

Of course, biblically speaking, church is not an event; it’s a community. The church is the assembly of women, men, and children redeemed by Christ, filled with His Spirit, and living in communion with Him and each other in a way that reveals to the world the invading reality of God’s kingdom. That kind of community requires us to be full participants and not merely spectators.

Remember, Jesus did not say where two or three are gathered I will stand before them. He said, “I will be in the midst of them.” The presence of God is revealed in the relationships between His people, not on a stage in front of them.

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