Play along with me for a minute and let’s use our imagination.
If a twenty-something artist named Michelangelo could create something as spectacular as the Pieta five-hundred years ago, think of the Ultimate Artist, one whose imagination spans the gazillion light years of a universe we can’t even fathom…to the sub-atomic world of quarks and neutrinos. If God had an investment in His incredibly complex piece of art called the human being…and if He wanted to use those carbon-based bipeds to bring about His overarching purposes for a world that’s gone haywire…and if He created an organization—a movement—that would be made up of these creatures to do that, wouldn’t it be a pretty amazing thing, right? That’s a Really Big Idea. And that’s The Church. Paul, the anti-Christian widow-maker of the first century who became a fervent follower of Jesus, takes a 50,000-foot view of the leadership structure of this organization/organism called the Church and describes it simply like this:
…And he is the head of the body, the church… COLOSSIANS 1:18a
Paul is establishing a big thought here. Not only is Jesus God, but He is also the Head—the strategic-thinking authoritative leader and brains—of a movement on earth called The Church, which is actually functioning as His Body. In other words, whatever Jesus wants to do on earth today is going to be done through The Church. Ordinary people like you and me. Now that changes everything about how I see The Church. And if we don’t get that revelation, we’ll tend to see this little thing that happens on the weekend as “going to church” and our petty divisions and squabbles and Christian subculture as what The Church is all about. That’s bigger than denominations and factions and Protestants and Catholics and committees and potlucks. Leaders, when you’re face down with internal quarrels and bickering in your church, lift your head up and get a bigger picture. It may not make your current disagreements simpler or easier, but it’s a critical reminder and a healthy energy-infusion that all of this is bigger than all of that. Remind your people what this movement called The Church really is on a regular basis. Dave Workman | Elemental Churches
“This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out. And that’s not all. You will have complete and free access to God’s kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven.” MATTHEW 16:18-19 THE MESSAGE
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