Competitive or Complementary - Vision, Part 3

How much do you resemble your parents? Do you have your mom's nose? Your dad's chin? How about bone structure? Or personality and temperament? Do you demonstrate their values and character qualities? When people look at you, do they observe anything about your heritage? How can people see what God is like? Certainly, they look to the Scriptures and to the person of Christ. But what is the first thing they see? They see the visible representation of Christ in the world - the Body of Christ. They see the Church. And sometimes we bear little resemblance to our Father! We may give a distorted view in many ways, but one of the most common (in my opinion) is in operating in isolated independence. In one of my previous blogs in highlighting the vision statements on the mission wall of the HBA Mission Center, I talked about our vision of autonomous congregations. A common misperception is that autonomous = independent. I don't believe an "independent" congregation is a New Testament congregation. A simple reading of the book of Acts and the letters of Paul should quickly dispel that myth. A congregation my be self-determining of its course under the direction of the Holy Spirit, but no congregation is self-sufficient. Even if a congregation has the resources to function without the assistance of other congregations, there is one thing an individual congregation cannot do ... BE the Body of Christ. Hence, our third congregational vision statement:

Interdependent congregations that are committed to voluntarily and cooperatively doing life and ministry together.

How does your congregation view other congregations? Are you suspicious of their methods and motives? Do you secretly envy their successes? Are you unconcerned toward their struggles? How much time does your congregation spend praying for other congregations who are co-laborers for the sake of the gospel in our communities? How are you joining with other congregations to present the reality of Christ and to be His hands and feet to lost people ... hurting people ... broken people ... ignorant people ... even rebellious people? You see, there are not multiple Bodies of Christ. There is one. And we present a fractured witness when we operate in a competitive way rather than a complementary way. The difference? Competitive is focusing attention on our methods as the right way. Complementary is focusing attention on the sovereign work of God in the world and using our methods and unique gift mix to cooperate in that work. Don't misunderstand me, I am talking about the ministry methods and unique gift mix of each local congregation as being complementary. I am not talking about a wide and unclear theology that distorts the clear message of the gospel. We just need to be sure that our "theological" issues really are based in absolute truth rather than in preferred terminology. The reality is that we need each other. Not because we cannot function separately, but because we should not function separately and present a divided Christ to the world. It seems to me that the association is uniquely poised to assist congregations in operating interdependently by focusing attention on how we can unite our hearts and hands to impact our communities with the reality of Christ. How can we assist you in being an effective member of the Body?