What Does It Mean To Be Church? - 19th Anniversary Celebrations

Here are some possibilities in answering the above question:
· The organised association of (local) people who profess to believe in and follow Jesus
· A community where its conscience is directed towards Jesus
· A spiritual reality made visible in a corporate form in the world
· A community that expresses its faith and worship as it listens, learns and follows God’s ways, as these are revealed in Scripture and by the Holy Spirit
· The place where Jesus unites people together in an environment of encouragement, support and challenge
· A community that does not exist for its own sake (or to conserve its own interests) but rather to share the love of Jesus (as experienced in the Gospels) with its neighbours.

In 1 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul is keen to describe what a church would be like and how it might function. He describes this in terms of a human body. And it is the Church which forms and functions like the human body that truly takes the role of Christ’s physical body on earth. Let’s read together verse 4 to 7 and then 12 to 27.

A human body has a number of varying parts combined together to make a whole. It is necessary for all these parts to work together in a coordinated way to make the body function to its fullest capacity. The hands do this, and the legs work that way; the eyes see, and the ears hear; all the various organs have there particular role. All such parts are interrelated and interdependent in sustaining life and making it purposeful.

However it is the brain inside of the head that is the nerve centre or control centre that keeps all of these interrelationships effective.

So it is with the church. The church community brings together a whole of lot of diverse people and personalities, all with their own particular contributions to make to the effectiveness of the whole. Just like the body can’t easily do without any of its member parts, so too the church community is the lesser if there are missing parts, or parts that for whatever reason are functioning less than their best. Such interrelated and interdependent parts of a church community must realise the need to support all the parts, or we should say the members, especially any who are struggling under difficulty. This would be a mutual response to the need for individual and collective health.

This is all beautifully summed up by G B Wilson who writes: “As the healthy functioning of the natural body demands the harmonious working together of all its constituent parts, so it is also with the Church which is the spiritual body of Christ.

Again it will be the head that holds all this diversity and complexity together. And we have come to know that the head of the church is Jesus Christ. Jesus was sent to earth, having already been a part of creating it, to usher in the Kingdom of God, the realm in which the will of God was sought on earth as it always had been in heaven. There was then the salvation event of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the founding of a movement by Jesus’ first disciples which has become known as the church. For the church to be truly God’s church, she needs to have Jesus as the head, the One who in effect does the thinking, guides the life of the church – the planning, decision-making, activities, and the One who holds all the divergent parts together.

Why is this so important? Because the church has a purpose! And this purpose is not only the survival of its component members within a hostile environment, and not only to grow and mature such people in the image of Jesus, but also to be a missional body – to share the richness of its life in God with all those yet to experience the Kingdom of God, and to together represent Jesus on earth.

And so we in the church bring all our individual gifts to the table, some we were born with, some we have been gifted with over time by the Holy Spirit … we bring all these, those that seem mighty important, and those that seem a little insignificant … those that are loud, and those that are quiet … we bring all these gifts to the table – for the sake of the common good! When we look at what God has given to each of us in terms of abilities (and probably resources as well) we need to look to the heart of this passage from 1 Corinthians 12 which stands at verse 7: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good”. And the best way to interpret the “common good” is to think in the broadest possible terms.

Just for the ‘rev heads’ amongst us, would not another example be the engine in a car, that includes so many different components, which on their own don’t achieve all that much, but when properly assembled, and then tuned, can power four wheels to turn at an incredible speed.

When we come to the later verses of our reading, we see that Paul was addressing rivalries and jealousies in the Corinthian church. There is no room in a Jesus following community for any feelings of spiritual superiority, boasting over gifts, or judgementalism. Those things that tend to divide people in the world, like status, knowledge and background bear no importance in valuing people in God’s church. Quiet, behind the scenes, use of gifts, is just as important as the obvious out there giftedness. No role is inferior to any other role, it’s just different.

Many people feel unappreciated, unneeded or unwanted in the workplace – this should not be the case in the church. It is exactly because, the eye can’t brush teeth, and the ear can’t go for a jog, that we all need each other. Everyone can give something, everyone can receive something. At the same time as doing what we can do, we allow and encourage others to do what they are gifted to contribute.

Matthew Henry wrote: “Variety in the members of the body contributes to the beauty of it”. It’s purely a matter of how God’s grace has panned out in each person’s life, and how God blends that diversity together into a harmonious whole.

So today, in acknowledgement of God’s faithfulness through 19 years of church community, we want to express together some of this relational interconnectedness and mutual giftedness in ways that encourage one another and potentially reach out beyond ourselves.

(1) This very connectedness is shown in 3 jigsaw puzzles we have had made. These are pictures of this community at worship, a worship that seeks to draw others in from the neighbourhoods around us. Essentially these jigsaws picture us as a collective movement of God’s leading. Now hopefully we won’t find any pieces missing, for those who like jigsaws no how this feels. Every piece is crucial to unravelling God’s view of things. You may like to participate in putting together these 99-piece puzzles.

(2) Then we have the opportunity of creating a banner or quilt (call it what you will) that can be hung and admired, reminding us of the various elements of giftedness that we bring together, especially that creativeness, a creativity, that if we just have the courage and confidence to let it flow, will take us into areas we had never before imagined. Such an artistic display might also represent the inclusive and broadly welcoming nature of the church. And different ideas are brought together into one piece.

(3) Also along creative lines, but also along the lines of remembering key biblical concepts and promises of God, we have the opportunity for children and any others who want to, to colour sheets, and also have them laminated to serve as placements. These can go home and be used at the dinner table, reminding each family unit of the fact of belonging to a wider family – the family of God … expressed in a church community.

(4) Then we have a prayer elective. As people join together to seek God’s mind and blessing, we are reminded that the church is far more than a human organisation – the church is a spiritual movement in touch with the power of the Divine Trinity of God. And so we would pray for direction, we would pray for our needs, we would pray in praise and thanksgiving for the knowledge of God we have experienced. And through this we would listen to God and one another, and be encouraged about the future.

(5) Then we have card-making. The selecting (in this case creating) of cards, along with writing a sentiment and sending them off is a powerful example of how we can care for one another in the human community. Such cards can be very personal, and being so, can be so uplifting and encouraging to the receiver. It is also good for the sender as they have stretched themselves to find ways and words of expressing support – the sort of care that God has for us all – pastoral care.

(6) Then we have badge-making. When we wear a particular label, like say a Carlton Football Club emblem on a jacket, or a red, white and blue bulldog on a jumper, we are saying something … we are saying who we support. This is a statement of identity and belonging. Making a badge and putting on it something that represents our faith, makes a statement about who we are and what is important to us. This reminds us of the badge, which is really our whole life, that says we barrack for (or better perhaps, follow) Jesus.

(7) Finally we have the opportunity to have our face-painted. For me this reminds us that we are a witnessing community of faith – we testify what Jesus has done for us to the world at large. This also reminds me that we should be an attractive, good-looking community to those who take an interest. Whereas we can show hope and positivity in our body language, it is usually most in our face that we can reflect the light of Jesus (even in the face of adversity). Shine Jesus … shine your light through the smile in my face and the glint in my eyes.

Having involved ourselves in these activities for a while, we’ll come back together and just talk about those things that occurred to us about what it means to be church!

What did you learn from these activities … about another person, about the meaning of being church, about God???