Let's push the envelope this morning. Here's the question: are there times in redemptive history when the church has been a hindrance to the extension of the Kingdom?
This is more than a fair question and goes much deeper than mere academic inquiry. Around the world missiologists indicate Christian spiritual awakening, millions of people responding to the Good News and becoming Christ followers. This data is reported mostly in nations accounted as "unreached" people groups, usually places where entrenched church tradition is rare. On the other hand, previously Christian "churched" locales, like Great Britain, France, and of course, the United States, are in decline. Can the answer to this dilemma be that the local church, as represented by our dated systems and strong divided denominational boundaries, be a hindrance to the advancement of the Gospel?
Let's don't spaz out here? Certainly we affirm that (1) the church belongs to Christ, (2) he promised to build his church, (3) he is the Head of the church, and (4) all things exist in him and for him. What is more, Scripture promises that even the gates of you know where cannot prevail over Christ's church. So, what is the deal here? Is Christ's church a failure? Is Christ's power and will for the church, through which the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the world, diminished by the times?
Well, no. There's no problem with his church. It is divinely instituted, constructed on the sure and firm foundation of Christ the Lord, and is the central mechanism for fulfilling Christ's Kingdom mission in this dark and lost world. So, analyzing church numbers and trends can't find fault in the plan of Christ or the church he dreamed. The problem must be that the modern depiction of the church has departed from the New Testament paradigm. The death of the church culture is not the death of the church. Christ's church is inviolable. The church us humans invented is the one in retreat. We've strangled the church in an organizational hierarchy and smothered the embers of evangelism and missions in our buildings, budgets, by-laws, business, and bulletins.
Around the world the Gospel has ignited fires of awakening in cultures that are not bound by the trappings of the institutional church. They're free of the labels, biases, traditions, and structures that so inhibit spiritual movement. On several church planting missions is these non-traditional church nations, the people discovered a level of service, fellowship, and authenticity before they owned buildings or became a part of an organized, hierarchical body.
So, what's the solution? Let's go to the edge again. Hebrews 12:1 advises,"...let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us". Everything that hinders covers a lot of ground. Usually we leap to the conclusion that this is basically sinful things, thing that spiritually keep us from "running the race". Consider this: Could this descriptive refer to the baggage we've added to the New Testament model, what we discover in Acts and the Epistles? Is it now time to discard all the road blocks to advancing the Kingdom?
The church? The city of God. The people of God. The family of God. The Body of Christ.The redemptive commumnity. The fellowship of saints.
Has anybody ever thought of the modern church as hindrance? Will I be burned at the stake for even thinking such a thing?
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