Dear Small Church Congregation,
In the last letter I proposed that there are people who have forgotten who owns Christ’s church (assembly, disciples, body, bride). That forgetting has prompted them to think they own the church—not just the building, but the whole thing—the people included. They act as if they should be able to determine everything that goes on inside a church house, who should be able to be involved in those activities and who should get the recognition for anything the congregation achieves “in the name of Jesus.” They essentially believe they have earned the right through their work, finances and faithful attendance over the years to be the ones making decisions about what, how, when, why and where things happen in “the church.”
However, this is not the case with those who constantly remind themselves of who they are (the church) and whose they are (the owner, Jesus). These disciples remember that what Jesus accomplished on Calvary as he died in their places is the payment that redeemed them, that bought them out of slavery to sin, that purchased their souls, that arranged their salvation from the wrath of God against evil and placed them into the family of God as heirs and joint-heirs with Jesus. They remember they are no longer their own. They remember who they are as born-again disciples and whose they are as members of the church Jesus said He would build.
The disciples of Christ who remember whose they are act differently from those who have forgotten. They are willing to submit their entire lives to Christ as their owner. They don’t just show up on Sundays to be in God’s presence. They worship and pray at home and show up at prayer meetings and worship services because they want to constantly be in contact with their owner. They don’t just tithe regularly. They give generously, many times sacrificially, to the needs of those less fortunate than themselves, to missionaries and to special projects designed to reach out to the sinners in their communities. They volunteer to help anywhere there is a need that they feel they can help meet. Essentially, they remember who redeemed them and will do whatever it takes to demonstrate that they remember who Jesus is to them.
The spiritual atmosphere in a congregation in which the attenders fully understand who they are and whose they are is different from other churches. There is an openness to the moving of the Holy Spirit. There is a unity, not just in worship, but in action, also. There are shared goals and dreams and agree-upon plans to achieve those goals and dreams. There is a feeling that “we need to do as much as we can for Jesus as soon as we can so we can take as many people as we can to heaven with us.”
When the people remember who they are (the church, the disciples, the body, the bride) and whose they are (they belong to Jesus), there will be fruit produced in the form of new disciples brought into the kingdom of God. That fruit will appear, grow and become mature because the people understand that their job now is to help other people be redeemed from slavery to sin, to be bought back from the curse of death and judgment, to be born again through faith in Jesus and what He accomplished through His death, burial and resurrection.
I learned something years ago that stunned me. I learned that there were several congregations in our geographic area that had not had a new salvation reported from the ministry of those churches in ten years. I realized, after looking at their situations, that they had forgotten who they were and whose they were. They had turned inward in their ministry, were trying to control the ministry and had stopped lifting up Jesus to new people.
Every time I saw lasting growth in the congregations I was privileged to pastor, that growth came because Jesus was being lifted up to new people. The congregations were focusing on whose they were and were introducing new people to their Owner, their Lord, their Redeemer—Jesus.
Remember this—It’s Jesus’s Church.
Sincerely,
A Small Church Pastor