'The Church Beyond The Congregation'

I was confronted 30 years ago with a different form of the message contained in this book by James Thwaites (a Pentecostal), and it still faces me today.

Some book titles are arresting and The Church Beyond The Congregation is one of these. However, it is more than just arresting because it is very easy to misunderstand what the book is proposing by simply interpreting its title within our normal categories. It's a creational given that we do this and it's dashed difficult to modify or abandon our settled categories.

I could start by asking, what is the Church? Such a simple question but it is easy to get the answer wrong according to New Testament (NT) terms.

The normal understanding of the Church is that it is only the institutional structure, the congregation that Sunday-by-Sunday meets to hear the scriptures read, to break bread, to pray and fellowship (Act 2.42).

If you would like a snapshot of this regular view, Google 'the Body of Christ', then click 'images' and peruse. For example, the image to the left gives this mistaken view in a nutshell.


However, we misunderstand the riches of the meaning of the Church as the Body of Christ if we believe that Church is fully expressed in its congregational activity, the 'religious' gathering on Sunday (or whenever), personal evangelism and individual 'good works'.

This grievous error of equating the Church with the congregation James Thwaites attempts to dispel in the above book.

In this introductory post, I can't present all the evidence for Thwaites' uncommon, though completely orthodox view (although Thwaites' speculations are at times unorthodox bordering on a form of panentheism). So I will outline one scriptural area that could be explored by those wanting to have their own understanding of the Church<--->congregational relationship enriched.

Ephesians

Arguably Ephesians is the great NT letter focussing on The Church as the Body of Christ (and Colossians is a companion letter focussing on Christ as the Head of the Church). 

The picture given in Ephesians is of Christ seated at the right hand of the 'God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory' (Eph 1.17) who 'made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all' (Eph 1.22-23, emphases mine).

Amazing statements are made in Paul's prayer (Eph 1.15-23). These verses should urge us to look beyond the Christian congregation (not forsaking it because it is a necessary part* of the Church) to what God is doing through his whole Church in all areas of life: marriage, family, and every work life (see Eph 5.21-33; 6.1-4, 5-9).

An Important Implication

Many important implications flow from the above understanding of the Church and its servant, the congregations of the various denominations. 

One that I want to emphasise at this point is that every Christ-believer is a 'minister' and is part of the general ministry of Christ's Body (Eph 4.11-13).

That being so, the term 'full-time Christian worker or minister' used to imply that only 'ordained, full-time pastors or workers' are full-time Christian workers is incorrect. 

However, I hear this expressed all the time and I'm sure readers of this blog do too. This view means that most of the people of God are outside the exalted group of Christian ministers and have to be content with doing 'secular' work which of course is inferior to the 'sacred' work of the church's ministry.  

This view falls short of the NT view of 'ministry' which essentially means service.

Next time, I will outline a brief history of how the churches of today got themselves into this unbiblical position and some steps we need to take to break our way out of it.  

* Perhaps as a hub is to a wheel depending on how important one sees the institutional church to be and I do see it to be important.