A Church Without Walls - Values, Part 4

Have you ever heard a church building referred to as the church-house? "Well, we went down to a meetin' at th' church house." Do you think you might be a redneck if that is what you call it? Actually, redneck as it sounds, you might be theologically correct. As we continue highlighting our core values as posted on the Mission Wall at the HBA Mission Center, the next value reads ...

Community Impact: Motivating the church to get outside the walls of the church-house to be the church in the community.

One way the Body of Christ has missed the mark is in referring to a building as the church. The New Testament never uses the word church in reference to a building, but in reference to a congregation or assembly of believers. The church is the people. It is not something you go to or have, but something you are a part of. You can't be a part of a building unless you are a brick (I won't make any brick-head comments. You can insert your own joke). One of the ways the association seeks to assist our churches is in helping to focus the church on being the church. Instead of trying to figure out how to get the community to come into a building (the church-house), we need to help each congregation focus on how to be the church (the visible representation of Jesus Christ) in the community. I am not anti-building. I am anti-edifice obsession. Churches are not built from wood, steel, brick and mortar. Churches are built with grace, truth, holiness, and compassion. A building is no more than a gathering place. Stained glass, steeples, pulpits, organs ... none of these make Christ real in the community. It is only what happens inside those buildings that motivates something to happen outside those buildings that determines whether the building is truly a church-house. Let's join together to pray that Christ is preeminently proclaimed inside our church-houses so that the church can get outside the walls and display in our communities the reality of who He is.

Living Inside-Out - Values, Part 3

After a week off for Spring Break, I return to the values statements on our Mission Wall at the HBA Mission Center. Value number 3 ...

Spiritual Formation: Calling one another to grow in personal and experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ.

So much of what we do in the church is action-oriented. We try to take seriously the Bibilcal admonition to "be doers of the word and not hearers only" (James 1:22). However, if we are not careful, we run the risk of becoming utilitarian Christians--using the Bible as an instruction manual for doing the Christian life--rather than Christ-followers who interact with God's inspired recorded self-revelation and who are being continually formed in the image of the ultimate self-revelation of God: the Word made flesh (Romans 8:29; John 1:14). So, as a missional network of congregations, we should not ask the singular question, "What would Jesus do?" in fulfilling our ministry strategies. We should also ask, "What is Jesus doing/forming in our lives that informs and inspires new ministry strategies?" It was my own asking of that question that led me to the issue of values in the first place. So, let us consistently and intentionally ask one another, "What is Jesus doing in your life and in your congregation?"

Checking our Equip-ment - Values, Part 2

No, the title of this blog doesn't have an accidental hyphen. As we continue with our highlighting of our Mission Wall at the HBA Mission Center, I want to point out the second of the value statements ...

Leadership Development: Facilitating opportunities for multiplying equipped disciples of Jesus Christ.

A characteristic common to almost every congregation is a shortage of leaders. How many times have I heard a pastor say, "God has put this ministry on my heart, but we just don't have anyone to lead it and I can't lead something else." Sure, there are the positional leaders (staff, deacons, teachers, committee chairs, Sunday School directors, etc) that have been chosen by some process of election/selection within the congregation. But what about honest-to-goodness disciples of Jesus Christ who are equipped to disciple others? Listen to the apostle Paul ...

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13, NIV, emphasis mine)

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2:2, NIV, emphasis mine)

Where are those leaders? My conviction is that those leaders are already in our churches. They just haven't been equipped yet. Our issue is not a shortage of leaders. Our issue is a gap in our equip-ment (our equipping process). So, where does the association come in? As an association, we can focus on programs and events that train people to do certain tasks (some of which they have been doing for decades), or we can focus on identifying resources and facilitating opportunities that assist our churches in equipping equippers. How I long for the day that I hear a pastor say, "We have so many equipped disciples of Jesus Christ that new ministries are popping up everywhere because God is inspiring passionate equipped disciples of Jesus Christ." Don't you think that is a value worth pursuing?

We are in this Together - Values, Part 1

As I continue this week in pointing out some of the statements you will read on the Mission Wall in the HBA Mission Center, I want to begin focusing on a list entitled, Our Values. One might ask about the origin of this list of values. I will be honest, the list came out of a prayer when I came to HBA in 2008. I had been on board about two months when I asked the Lord to show me what He wanted me to focus on and pour my energy and passion into. What He impressed on my mind and heart was that I shouldn't focus on activities and events, but on the values that would determine what kind of ministries might be developed. A list of six values came out of this time of prayer and seeking the Lord. I will highlight them one at a time for the next six weeks. The first statement on the list ...

Fellowship: Building trusting and supportive relationships for Kingdom purposes.

Now, when Baptists talk fellowship, we often think of food. While food and friends sometimes accompany fellowship, there is nothing particularly Christian about eating and visiting. What we are talking about is building community within the association family. Note the words trusting and supportive. If HBA is truly going to be a missional community of cooperative congregations, we have to know each other. We have different methodolgies and passions, but as we share this journey together, we will support and trust one another for the sake of fulfilling the Lord's Kingdom purposes. Let us not isolate into individual congregations whose only overlap is that we use some of the same resources and send money to the same address. Let us network together, trusting one another, and supporting one another for the sake of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.