chaoticsoul

// Thursday, January 31, 2008 // 10:03 AM // Kitchen Table //

I don’t know what’s going to happen with the dog. We’ll see. We’re supposed to go look at him today, which probably means we’ll walk away with another dog. Good Lord, what are we doing?

…so back to what I was in the middle of yesterday…

Ok, so discipleship seems to be a function of the church that you can’t do on your own. It’s got to be modeled, and not necessarily programmed. I don’t think Timothy necessarily rolled up to the Corinthian church with a new discipleship “program” with a flashy logo and alliterated tag line. But that’s for another time.

Keep going in I Corinthians and he starts talking about instructions for worship, corporate worship in the church. First, instructions on corporate prayer, communion, the gifts and ministry of Holy Spirit, love (interesting that he takes a break to say that love is more important than all of these gifts we fight over so much… love it), the message of the gospel (what is the right gospel to preach/adhere to), and giving for the needs of others.

How many of these things can even the most spiritually mature believer do by him or herself? Corporate prayer—no. Communion—somewhat, but not as it was intended (I Cor 11:33 “when you come together”). Gifts/ministry of Holy Spirit—not really, it’s interesting but most of the gifts Paul mentions here are meant to be expressed to others. Love—you can definitely do this alone, but the collective love of the church is a powerful experience I’d hate to miss in life. The message of the gospel—yeah, ok, don’t know what to do with that one. Giving for the needs of others—absolutely, you can do this on your own, but again in this context Paul seems to be alluding to a corporate act combining the sacrifice of its individual members. If you’ve ever seen something like that in action, when we all give towards the needs of another as a church, you know it’s one of the most powerful things we can do and experience.

So I understand where Hybels is coming from. We need to develop spiritually mature Christians that can fend for themselves in the world. But at the same time, we need to provide in the church a place where those independently mature believers can get together and pray, worship, minister, love, and give. An atmosphere where that is happening regularly is what I long for. It’s what I’m praying for today.