The Human Element, Part 1

What's 2010 going to be like for ChurchWorld?

I'm no fortune teller, but I am 100% sure it will involve people.

2010 is going to be about “The Human Element”. The people of God are going to be the biggest factor in what happens in churches around the world in 2010. Here are a few ideas of how that will come about.

The Divine Model
There are certainly many areas of my belief system that rest on faith, and one of the most prominent has to be the knowledge that Jesus Christ was both the Son of God and a man just like me. When I try to rationalize that and think it through, I always end up puzzled. But if I believe it on faith, I begin to grasp a new appreciation for who Christ is, what He experienced in life on earth, and what that means for us. Nothing we encounter is beyond His comprehension; nothing we do is new ground for Him. Knowing that should give us comfort – we serve a God who has gone before us, marking the path as a guide, and encouraging us to follow Him. Understanding that “His word is a lamp for our feet and a light for our path” should give us courage as we embark on being His hands and feet to our world. He has not only been there before, He walks with us in Spirit and in Word.

Body Language
The use of metaphor in scripture is probably at its highest when Paul refers to the church as “the body of Christ”. Where else would we have a walking, living, breathing example of what God intended the church to be? It’s with us 24/7, teaching how we as individual members ought to get along and work together for a common good – the cause of Christ. The people of God should work as smoothly together as our bodies do, each part interacting and living out its unique purpose for the health and well-being of the body as a whole, and not just the individual part. When we act together in unison, the world will take notice.

Understanding What a Church Really Is
The institution of the church is dying; the organism of the body of Christ is awakening from a long sleep. Somewhere in the past, with all good intention, we slowly created the institution of the church and became more concerned with the maintenance of the status quo instead of the mission of God. That is changing rapidly and none too soon. People in the church building are beginning to realize that they are the church, and are doing something about it.

Tomorrow, some additional thoughts about "The Human Element".