CHRISTIANITY

Let me tell you what it is not and then what it is.

Christian faith is not primarily about the sacrifice that believers make for Jesus in order to become Christian, but rather about the sacrifice that he made for us. Christianity is not about intensified devotion, trying even harder, doing better and being better, proving ourselves. No, no. Its essence is not doing something for Jesus but rather it is Jesus accomplishing something in us. His sacrifice once, and his ongoing work in us now. That is something that people find attractive because that is not religion. It is relationship. This is not about performance with respect to a faith system that legislates morality. A heavy-handed condemnation has resulted from that model and people have walked away from Jesus when they should have walked away from that specific model of Christian expression. Jesus' proclamation was good news. It was good news to good people and to bad people, to free people and prisoners, to healthy and diseased people, to sighted people and blind people. It was good in the first century and it is still good today because is about God's mercy to every last one of us, each of whom is naturally undeserving. Yet we are invited into relationship through faith in Jesus, Son of God, Lamb, Saviour, King, and endorsed a member of God's family.

OWNERSHIP - WE ARE THE CHURCH

I was a church pastor for over forty years. I have been retired for five years. I am wearing a new pair of glasses.

This past Sunday our pastor told us that we are not merely doing church. We are the church. We are a people group within the larger Church of Christ. Inherent in that statement and the theology of church to which it speaks, is the idea that being church concerns relationships, understanding, mutually concerned, selfless, altruistic and well intentioned relationships.

ILL-INFORMED ECCLESIOLOGY

With hands together and fingers extended like the spire of a church, the dated rhyme was recited when I was a child. “Here’s the church, and here’s the steeple, open the door and see all the people.” I had no idea that I was quoting faulty theology. Actually, the terms ‘church’ and ‘people’ are not distinct from one another. Academically most of us understand that ‘church’ is people rather than stone, concrete, dry wall and seating. Church is people, each of whom is a living temple in which God’s Holy Spirit lives. Scripture uses the Greek word ekklesia, meaning assembly to convey the idea of ‘church.’ The theology of the child’s rhyme is improve if we change it to, “Here’s the building and on top is a steeple, open the doors and the church is the people.’