All Things Seen & Unseen

'Then the preacher said the most provocative words that church congregations need to hear and act on today. The most significant piece of 'furniture' or fitting in this building are :   the doors through which you will all leave at the end of this service and go out into the world.' I ended with the above words in my last post. I'm a bit crabby at the moment. Yes, I know, good Christians are not supposed to get irritable , fractious , fretful , cross , petulant , pettish , crabbed , crotchety , cantankerous , disagreeable , miserable , morose , peppery ,  edgy , impatient , querulous ; etc but I am.  I think my crabbiness has to do with the fact that the visible, institutional church doesn't get it! But then I have to remember that for many years I didn't get it either until a rude, Dutchman woke me up out of my dogmatic slumber.  So I have nothing to boast about. None of us does. The church is in such a parlous condition in Australia that none...

I was conf ronted 30 years ago with a different form of the message cont ained 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 th ese. 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 das hed difficult to modify or abandon our settled categ ories. I could start by asking, what is the Church? Su ch a simple que stion 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 snap shot of this regular view, Google 'the Body of Christ...