On Saturday 25th January Inge and I attended a day’s conference at the Trinity Church, Cheltenham where David Parker of the Desert Vineyard Church, California was speaking.
In three sessions David was able to express what the church is really all about. The first session was on the ‘Father’s purpose’. As a background to what the Father’s purpose is in the church he showed that His purpose in creation was family, fruitfulness and love, i.e. there is a relational basis, which existed beforehand between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The church is at the centre of God’s plan for creation, which is to reach it, redeem it and restore it.
To do this through the church, God’s purpose is to have a people (a family, a community, a body) and a place of prayer, of healing and of mercy. God’s church is unified, wholly the Lord’s, it is inclusive of all – there are no exclusion criteria, but ‘all that do not gather with me, scatter’ (Matt. 12 v.30). (A family of Buddhists was welcomed at the Desert Vineyard church as there was no Buddhist temple in the area, they liked it and now all the members of the family are Christian believers, similarly Hindus and Sikhs. David’s atheist friend, a professor of microbiology, asked if he could come along “Can I come if I don’t believe in God?”) The church is gospel-centred – its message is salvation.
God’s church in the New Testament has moved on from the previous historical patterns for God’s people, which were the temple and the synagogue. The temple is a house for God. The synagogue is a house for God and believers. The church is a house for God, believers and searching hearts. David explained the different characteristics, for example, the emphasis in the temple was on holiness and it was our spiritual distance from God that was experienced, it was a place of sacrifice. The emphasis in the synagogue was on law and it was spiritual discipline that was experienced and was a place for the sabbath. David said that many ‘churches’ today are synagogues. The emphasis in the church is on grace and there is an experience of spiritual discovery, it is a place of salvation. The temple is designed for preparation for a relationship with God and is served by a priesthood. The synagogue is designed for preservation and is served by a rabbi, a lawgiver, a leader. The church is designed for proclamation and is served by a body.
Knowing that God has a ‘gathering heart’ we in the church need to grow one too and this requires us to resist inwardness, risk the unfamiliar, respect the process involved in people coming to appreciate God and rethink the boundaries. People have a prejudice about the church. Their encounter with Jesus is a surprise to them.
In Jesus we have a pattern to follow in how His church is to operate. There were imperatives in Jesus’ life – “I must preach …” (Luke 4.43) and “I must bring …” (John 10.16). Jesus’ passionate priority was for the missing – he welcomed sinners and ate with them, he had an energetic commitment to find what was lost and to build bridges, he had a loving self-denial. His impact brought forgiveness, acceptance and transformation to people’s lives. He has called us into the same ‘family’ business.
The Holy Spirit has been sent to assist the church in God’s ongoing work of the redemption of the world. He commands us to “go and stay near” the searching person. He engages us in the process and equips us for it (Acts 8.26-40). The gifts of the Holy Spirit are intended to be used primarily in an ‘evangelistic’ context – they are for mission not maintenance. For them to be effective, we need to be rightly related to others – those who are already part of the body of Christ and those who are not. This issue of right relationship is of such importance that most of the New Testament is devoted to it. When we are rightly related to God and man the rest follows. Preaching the gospel flows out of our love for God and man. There is little instruction on ‘how to’ evangelise. David Parker gave eight keys to building bridges instead of barriers.
- ‘Major’ on the major issues – e.g. the cross.
- Look deeper than the surface (of what people present).
- Blur the boundaries between ‘in’ and ‘out’.
- Don’t qualify your welcome.
- Identify with the broken.
- Use what you have.
- Serve the surprise.
- Lower the barriers – the incomprehensible, the out of proportion, the artificial, the inaccessible
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