The living potential of every church

Dear Friends,

What would happen if your church lost its building, had to fire all of its paid staff, couldn’t advertise any meetings publically, and had no authorized legal status. What if all the Christian organizations in your country were disbanded, and the Word of God could not be bought in any store? Would the Church of Jesus Christ be crushed… or grow?

Alan Hirsch posed this question to 125 church leaders from eight countries of Eastern Europe at our training center in Czech last month. His probing wasn’t just theoretical – this was exactly the situation facing the early church during the time that it grew from a small band of 120 followers to over 20 million. More recently the Chinese church has exploded under similar circumstances.

Of course, none of us wish for this kind of persecution. But, as Hirsch argued, these adverse circumstances stripped the church down to its living essence, a people submitted to the Lordship of Christ and sold out to his mission. They made disciples, not just converts, lived in true community, not just in fellowship, and lived the church, rather than just attended it. They structured in organic, flexible ways, and leaned on all of the five equipping gifts described in Ephesians chapter 4, those of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher.

The good news is that this living potential lies in every church that truly belongs to Christ – and it can be called back to this essential DNA even in the busy, media saturated world we now live it. If, that is, we remember who we are.

A friend of mine was asked how much time he spends in church. “All of it”, he said.

He didn’t have in mind the building of the church, but the mission of church – living under the Lordship of Christ and calling other people to him.

That is a cause worth living for – with or without persecution.
Because of Jesus,