William Shakespeare famously wrote in Romeo and Juliet, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet". And this got me thinking, what is in a name?For example, would a chocolate doughnut by any other name stop being so tasty and delicious? My answer would be no, it doesn't matter what we call the doughnut, it will still be full of chocolaty goodness and we will still eat it no matter what it is called.
This got me thinking again. Would church by any other name, design or paradigm stop being the body of Christ and stop growing the Kingdom?
Today there are so many books, blogs, lectures, conferences, songs, courses, and university degrees about what church should be, what it should and shouldn't include, who the target audience should be, and the list goes on. As you can imagine, this has created much heated debate and division as to what church actually is, what it looks like and what it's role is. I think in these discussions we have truly lost the focus, the church is Christ's body.
I think we have started to lose sight of what it is to be church, it is about being a community that is joined by and through Christ. He is our head, leader, and He is our purpose. Without Christ, there is no church.
If our starting point is Christ, then it shouldn't matter if the church community meets on a Tuesday evening in a pub, or if it meets for mass on Sunday morning in a particular building. It won't matter if the church community has 1000 people or if it has 3. It wont matter what we don't agree on, we will be united in what we do.
If Christ is our purpose then as church we shouldn't care about what we are called, or what we look like, but instead we should be looking to Christ and follow where He is leading us. We will be able to walk boldly into the relationships, the conversations, the circumstances that He is placing us in. We will see the captives released, the blind will see and the oppressed set free.
When Jesus is the head of His church we will be working where Christ is working, leaving division behind and stepping out as a unified body of Christ. There will be growth beyond anything we have ever seen
Let's forget about what we are called, or how we look, we are united in Christ, let's live it.
The kingdom isn't hard.
