THE TRANSFORMATIONAL CHURCH

How alive is the Church?  Well, the Church of Jesus Christ is alive and well all around the world, because Christ said that He would build His Church, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18).  I guess the bigger question is how alive is your church?

I was challenged some time back by the message of Erwin McManus in his book An Unstoppable Force.  He wrote –

“The problem is that we treat the church as an organization instead of an organism.  Even an elementary reading of the New Testament would make it clear that the church is the body of Christ.  The church in her essence is a living system.  Whenever we see the church through the template of an organization, we begin creating an institution.  When we relate to the church as an organism, we begin to awaken an apostolic ethos, which unleashes the movement of God.  The power and life of God’s Spirit working in his people result in nothing less than cultural transformation.”

I believe that there are three types of local churches today:  traditional, trendy and transformational.  The early church started as a transformational body of believers and changed the known world…  But over time, when men began to live off of yesterday’s revelation, church life transitioned into tradition.  We get the trendy church movement from the frustrations of leaders who wanted change but because of little to no revelation and a great influence of business principles, the church began to do and be for the people…  The main reason the first century church was transformational was because of who she knew she was.  In the book Reclaiming God’s Original Intent for the Church, “the chief concern of the early church was not a matter of doing ‘what works’ but a matter of being the people of God.”

We have spent so much time, money and other resources on growing the church that we have forgotten to just BE the church.  Does that mean we don’t need organization?  On the contrary, but organization is to serve the releasing of the church into the neighborhoods, networks and nations of the world.  What does this look like and how do we get there…?  Acts 2:42-47 lays it out in 5 descriptions: sound doctrine, signs and wonders, singleness of purpose, steadiness of faith and strength of influence.  Ultimately, they infiltrated the cultural system of their day!  We either don’t have enough organization to serve the purpose of releasing the body of Christ or we have too much that creates an agenda of keeping people in.  Let’s recognize afresh that sincere followers of Christ are called upon to become high impact leaders in their cultures.  That’s TRANSFORMATIONAL!