WHAT IS THE PLACE OF THE CHURCH IN THE WIDER COMMUNITY by Ric Benson Senior Pastor Kenmore Baptist Church Brisbane If regular examination of one's life is an imperative for the individual, then how much more is it for a church that purports to be carrying out God's will and which influences the lives of many individuals, families and groups? In responding to the question, "What is the place of the church in the wider community?" we are immediately pressed to examine the lives of individual Christians and the churches to which they belong. The simplistic answers so often given to this question reflect a defence of a church's ministry emphasis, rather than a critical response from God's Word. There are a plethora of underpinning questions which force a considered response in the hope that adjustment and refinement of ministry and mission would ensue. It is imperative that the response to this question then would not be naively simplistic, confusingly complex, or irrationally defensive, but powerfully insightful and practically simple. This important question poses at least three implied nuances. 1. "What should be the place of the church in the wider community?" This nuance requires theological and philosophical considerations, and its careful analysis should greatly assist in the formation of the church's purpose and mission statements. 2. "What currently is the place of the church in the wider community?" This question requires sociological and psychological considerations, and its careful analysis should greatly assist in the formation of the church's lifestyle and core values statements.3. "What could be the place of the church in the wider community?" This question requires strategic and practical considerations, and its careful analysis should assist greatly in the formation of the church's vision and goals statements and strategic plan.It should be noted, that asking profound or key questions around an issue, is an art every Christ-follower and church leader should master, and is the path to focussed thinking. Focussed thinking gives clarity, without which, effective leadership, planning and communication will at best be limited and wasteful, and at worst destructive and misleading. Confidence, balance, motivation, organization, and potential development and release, all require focus. Focussed thinking is mature thinking which allows the development of process to link opportunity and desired outcome. Great leaders and great churches have the ability and boldness to continually and passionately refocus and realign based on the asking of profound questions and seriously responding to them. Space will only permit a superficial and simple treatment of each of these questions and considerations, but hopefully such treatment will galvanize us to carefully define and design our church's ministry to the wider community, restructure and redirect as necessary, and encourage positive and proactive personal and corporate response. The responses to these three nuances is an outcome of asking and considering many other questions, which for brevity sake, have to be assumed rather than listed. Q: What should be the place of the church in the wider community? The local church is a community of people, who have through salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, entered into the Kingdom of God, with Jesus as their King and them as His obedient subjects. This community of Kingdom people are to progressively grow through discipleship and supernaturally expressed love, into a deeper understanding and supernatural experience of the Kingdom of God. As they do, their mission is to be agents of the Kingdom of God in their wider community, and indeed in the world around them. They are supernaturally empowered through prayer, and guided by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit to make disciples and to love others. The church is to occupy God's central place in the wider community. The church is not to exist for itself, but for all who have not yet entered the Kingdom of God. The church is to be an audio-visual agent of the Kingdom of God through proclamation and compassionate service that meets the community's deepest needs. When this concept and these truths are understood the church is ready to set its purpose and mission statements.Fundamentally the church is called to present a living and dynamic expression of the Kingdom of God on earth to both those inside and outside the Kingdom. To those outside the Kingdom, they explain that Jesus is the door into the Kingdom, and that through the salvation He provides they too can enter within and experience the Kingdom of God. The church then is to disciple those in the Kingdom to be Kingdom citizens, and train them to be agents of the Kingdom in the wider world through compassionate and loving service and challenging proclamation. Sadly much of what the church and its congregation believes and does bears little or no relation to this fundamental call. The purpose and mission statements of the church must be Kingdom centred and must powerfully dictate the very nature and activity of the church at every level.Q. What currently is the place of the church in the wider community?Many, if not most local churches and their congregations have a conviction and heart both for Kingdom living and for bringing the Kingdom of God to their wider community. Sadly, the church's busyness with internal programs, the congregation's preoccupation with the cares of their frenetic lives, the enormity and overwhelming nature of the community needs, and the confusion about what it means to be in the world but not of the world, has led to the church in general and congregations in particular, being largely disengaged from its Kingdom responsibilities. The church needs to revisit its core values and intentionally build into every person and ministry area, Kingdom values and lifestyle from which growing engagement with the wider community can emanate and flourish. The Kingdom values and lifestyle would include the following: Submission to Christ, Worshipful Living, Intentional Stewardship, Passionate seeking of God, Growing in Christ-likeness, Bible-Centeredness, Relational Connection, Full Participation , Compassionate Caring, Spirit Empowerment, Evangelistic Outreach, and Missions Engagement.When a church actively seeks to prioritize, promote, establish, and develop in its culture and people, these and other kingdom core values, spiritual DNA and lifestyle qualities, it will begin to take its place in its wider community as an agent of the Kingdom. Programs which pacify people and cater for their wants will never achieve this outcome. For the church to change there will have to be open, honest, and dynamic assessment of their current Kingdom status, and a passionate desire to realign the church and its congregation to obedient Kingdom living for Christ.Q. What could be the place of the church in the wider community?When the local church realizes that it can powerfully impact its wider community by being kingdom-focussed, that is, taking the Bible as both its message and method book and applying biblical principles, priorities, practices and performance outcomes, it is then ready to enunciate and pursue its vision, its goals and its strategic plan. When the church develops a Kingdom pathway both personally and corporately, the life and power of God flows back into the church and the church then has a renewed and real sense of meaning, purpose and mission.The church will always struggle with its own carnality, but when Kingdom-focussed will powerfully press on, knowing that its very struggle is an essential part of its mission, and an indicator that the clash of Kingdom and world cultures is in progress. Rather than being overwhelmed with various methods, techniques, ideas and procedures all purporting to make the church "successful", God is simply calling on all churches and Christ-followers to be Kingdom-focussed and committed to being agents of His Kingdom.The simple non-negotiable underpinning biblical purposes of celebration, cultivation, care, communication and community, along with the priorities of making disciples, maturing believers, and multiplying ministries, working through the practices of corporate worship, open and closed groups and ministry teams, will of necessity produce numerical growth, spiritual transformation, ministry expansion and Kingdom advance.It is incredible that churches have seriously over time tried all kinds of approaches to grow the church. They have tried desperately to identify with their local community by contextualizing their message and methods often with very little return. They have tried stopping the swing away from the church by either conservatively hanging on to many of the man-made traditions developed over the centuries, or by radically adopting a worldly form of spirituality that is shallow and unsatisfying.Yet staring them in the face is Jesus' Kingdom teaching and lifestyle which when applied in obedience, with enthusiasm, with commitment, and with the power of God, literally yields the kinds of results that Jesus had in His earthly ministry - results that every committed Christ-follower and church leader desperately longs for. When the wider community sees Kingdom people, living out a Kingdom lifestyle, engaged in Kingdom ministry and mission in their midst, they will in large number desire a reason for the hope that lies within so that they too can enter and participate in the Kingdom of God.What then is the place of the church in the wider community? The only place for the church in the wider community is at the very centre where God calls and commands us to be. When the church is literally and practically in that place, being the church He wants it to be, manifest spiritual blessings will flow into the church and the lives of the Christ-followers. There is a current and exciting movement around the world of the Spirit challenging the church to examine itself, particularly in light of Kingdom theology. The old criteria for success are no longer relevant. It is now about making a significant and sustainable difference in the lives of people in the wider community. To be truly "salt and light" requires being different and doing things differently. God doesn't want mere change, He wants radical transformation both in the church and from the church into the wider community. Transformation is not found in strategies, programs, campaigns or tactics, but rather in a radical encounter with Jesus Christ, an ongoing relationship and empowerment by His Holy Spirit, and an engagement with a needy world. For transformation to actually happen, we will have to ask the crucial and difficult questions, and be prepared to change our paradigms if we are to score a different outcome than what we have had before. If we positively respond to this challenge, we could see a powerful resurgence of Christianity equal to anything previously experienced. May we work together toward that end. Source: Australian Prayer Network
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