Matters of Ownership

I've been studying, praying and listening lately with the desire to find out exactly what God wants our church to be. I say lately but this is obviously something that I should be continually doing. Anyway, I think the crux of the matter in regard to what our church will be is in the recognition of ownership. Who owns the church? Now, having asked that question anyone who is a believer automatically answers "Jesus does." We know this to be true because Paul said "Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body." (Eph. 5:23 NKJV) But, do we handle ourselves and the church in that way? Well, I'm sure at times we do. But my desire for our church is that we become exactly what Jesus wants us to be. The only way our church will grow to be what Jesus desires is if the Spirit is leading us in all we do.

Francis Chan's book Forgotten God came in the mail a couple days ago and several things he wrote about cemented exactly the way I've been thinking. (I would quote from the book but I've already loaned it out to a friend.) One thought he brought up, which I shared with our church the other night, was if we were completely isolated from the church and the only understanding of what the church should be came from our study of the Bible; what would we think of our modern, western church if we observed a typical Sunday morning? Now, one aspect of my thoughts about this is the description of the actions of the church in Acts 4. If I asked our church to sell everything they had, bring it to the church and share all things in common people would instantly describe me as a crazy, radical, cult leader. They would be watching to see if I was going to break out the Kool-Aid. The idea of this type of community goes against our grain in many ways. These days it's a social political issue that we sum up with the word socialism. So, because of the human factors of dishonesty and selfishness we cannot fathom this lifestyle because it will always break down.

I'm not suggesting to our church we try to be as the apostolic church was in this way because I don't want to lose my ability to minister to others. There is one fact we must address, however. The reason the apostolic church could do this and everyone be treated fairly without injustice, selfishness, contention and dispute is because they were led completely by the Spirit. They understood Jesus' ownership in a very practical way which always culminates in complete Spiritual leadership. They knew Jesus was the Lord, founder and designer of His church and when this truth becomes practical it will greatly affect the goals, gifts and product of the church.

This leads me to this point. Many times in the modern, western church we put together programs and events that we feel that will help the church to grow. In doing that we tend to figure out what we're doing and then ask God to be a part of it. That's even the way we're taught. "Make sure, whatever you do, you bathe it in prayer so God's power will be upon it." Some of the men of our church and I meet early every Sunday morning to pray that God's power and presence be upon our services that day. I know this is a good thing to do. But, the question that has come to my mind is how much are we doing just by our own design and just asking God to be a part of it. I believe it's time that we truly seek, by the Holy Spirit's direction, what God wants us to be as a church. It is time, instead of asking God to be a part of what we're doing, that we ask Him if we can be a part of what He's doing. I think the question we must always be asking is; is this what I want or what Jesus wants? Are we acting by the leading of the Holy Spirit or the leading of our own desires? If the church is really Jesus Christ's then let's let Him have it!