chaoticsoul

// Wednesday, January 30, 2008 // 10:37 AM // Kitchen Table //

My dog is doing laps around the couch now, it’s pretty awesome. And when she realizes I’m watching her, she slows down and just starts walking in circles, very nonchalant, like people do when you catch them singing in their car. My dog is awesome.

And I’m listening to some amazing music on myspace, I’ve listened to these songs about 100 times and still love them. Check it out… Savio

So yesterday I wrote a little about the research Bill Hybels has just released regarding the lack of effectiveness of Willow Creek at maintaining spiritual maturity in their members. First of all, I have to hand it to the guy, it takes some guts to stand up and say “we really screwed this up,” I can’t imagine how hard that is, especially when it’s something you’ve literally poured your whole life into. It’s those moments where a verse like I Corinthians 3:7 is really encouraging, talking about the church… “So neither he who plants or he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” At the end of the day, the church is His, and as much as we may screw things up, He’s still somehow the one in control.

Last night, while I was walking my aforementioned dog, I had a thought about the Hybels talk. His response to the findings was something like, “At a certain point in people’s spiritual formation, we need to train them to feed themselves.” At first, that makes complete sense, it’s not that hard to understand. There’s always been something about the common church complaint “I’m just not getting fed” that bugs me. It seems dangerously commercial and selfish—this church exists to feed me, and it’s not doing that, so I’ll find one that does. I know that’s not what some people mean by it, believe me, I’ve said it several times myself.

But then, walking through the neighborhood, something hit me. Yes, we need to build self-sufficient Christians. But aren’t there some things that the church is mandated to do that we simply can’t do alone? We can read Scripture, and Holy Spirit will help us to interpret it correctly. We can evangelize on our own, even if we’re the only believer we know. We can worship and pray in secret, as we should. But there are some things we can’t do on our own.

The first that came to mind is corporate worship. Try as you might, you can’t equip believers to the point that they can experience corporate worship on their own. It’s a function of the church, and one of the most incredible privileges of the church. So that set me thinking—what else is out there that we can’t do on our own?

And then I Corinthians jumped up. This book is written specifically to a church who has already gotten things very wrong. People were drawn to Jesus, but from that point on things were going astray. So, instead of spending hours digging into the book (which I need to do), I just skimmed through it, looking for the main points that Paul is pointing out. What are they, and how do they relate to this idea?

First, after begging the church to maintain unity, Paul launches into a big discussion of what is moral and what is not. He addresses sexual immorality, greed/pride in the public sphere, God’s standard for marriage, what to do with food that has been sacrificed to idols. All of these seem to be somewhat clear cut, things we can learn on our own and hopefully adhere to as growing Christians. So what’s the reason behind I Corinthians 4:14-17?

“I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children. Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in the church.”

So, even though his instructions were as clear as he could make them, he still needed to send them an example. Someone to live out faith and express for the entire church what to be striving for. So even Paul understood that he could instill rules into the church, but at some point people need discipleship. And you can’t be discipled by yourself. It’s a function of the church.

//I’ll continue this tomorrow, it’s gotten way too long. Sorry.//