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About Jesus Steve Sweetman My Journey Through The Ecclesiastical Maze Part 4
The
Sunday Morning Meeting As I’ve
traveled my way through the ecclesiastical maze I estimate that I‘ve
attended more than 10,000 church meetings in my life.
I guess I’ve been loyal to Hebrews 10:25 that says we “should
not give up meeting together”,
but nowhere in this verse, or in any other New Testament verse does it
say when or where to meet, something our churches tend to emphasize. That
being said, 1 Corinthians 14 tells us what to do when we meet,
something most churches ignore. It’s
seems clear to me that we major on what the Bible doesn’t say while we
neglect what it does say. In
other words, we value tradition over truth.
As
Christians we’ve Christianized the Jewish Sabbath and moved it to
Sunday. In the process
we’ve made the Sunday morning meeting the highlight of all Christendom
and the sermon the centerpiece of this meeting.
With this in mind in 1978 I spoke to one Pentecostal
church, asking them if they had no regularly scheduled meetings and no
building, would they still have a church?
I still think that’s a relevant question. I
should have let them answer, but I didn’t.
Like many preachers I probably felt my sermon was more important
than what these people were thinking.
I’ve since learned that an interactive Bible study based on
sound interpretation skills around a kitchen table helps people learn
better than a 30 to 60 minute sermon. I’ll
explain that this way There
are three ways you can teach your children.
I’ll use forgiveness as an example.
You can teach your children to forgive by telling them to
forgive, which seldom works. You can show them a sample of forgiveness
by being a living example as you teach them.
This works much better. Or,
you can help them to forgive their offender by personally getting
involved in the forgiving process with them.
This works best because they learn experientially. They’re
not just told what to do. You actually help them forgive.
You might call this discipleship. Our universities call this
“co-op work-placements”. The
Sunday sermon is the least effective way to teach, but we’ve made it
the highlight of the Christian week. Besides,
the Greek word “euangelizo” translated as preach in the New
Testament simply means “to proclaim or speak”.
Thus it’s a mistake to understand preaching or speaking God’s
Word exclusively in terms of a sermon. My guess
is that most churches would soon disappear if not for the regularly
scheduled meetings and the building because most Christian activity
centers around meetings and buildings. Without a Sunday meeting churches
would face financial disaster because we’d lose the morning offering.
I know from experience that most people are so used to giving on Sundays
that if asked to give at some other time instead, they don’t. Back in
the 1980’s the community of Christians I was a part of met every other
Sunday. We used the off
Sundays for family days or to reach out to our neighbours. I thought
that was a good idea, but traditionalists wanted the weekly Sunday
meeting and stayed well clear of us. Scripturally
speaking, church is all about the individual being joined to Jesus and
then being joined to those He has placed us with.
1 Corinthians 12 teaches that each of us is a body part in the
Body of Christ. Each body part has a job to do by itself, and also has a
job to do with the body part it’s joined to.
One implication of this is that when the body parts assemble
together, every part participates. This is what 1 Corinthians 14 is all
about. It’s a pretty
dysfunctional body when only a hand and a foot try to do their job while
the rest of us sit in pews watching them. Just
picture your own hand and
foot trying to function while the rest of your body does nothing.
Death would be imminent.
It’s
not hard to figure out. Each
of us have a few Christian friends that Jesus has joined us to . You are
one bone in the body and your friend is another bone.
Your friendship is called a joint.
I call these joints “functional relationships” because the
friend you are joined to is both your friend and your co-worker in the
service of Jesus. You’re
not just friends for mutual edification, but you’re friends working
together for Jesus. That’s really church, friends working with Jesus. Most of
us don’t think in terms of functioning in God’s Kingdom with our
friends. We think in terms
of functioning in church organizations, and that’s where most of our
Christian activity centers around. This
isn’t New Testament thinking. Have
you ever thought what you and your best friend could do in the service
of the Lord, or have you only thought in terms of working for the church
group you’re a part of? I
remember Gary S. Paxton, a Christian singer in the 1970’s feeling a
little like he was an arm-pit in the Body of Christ. I guess he felt out
of place. Maybe some
people view me as an arm-pit stinking up the church. O well, if Jesus
has made some of us arm-pits, so be it.
Paul speaks well of us arm-pits when he says “those parts of
the body that we think are less honourable we treat with special honor.
And the parts that are unpresentable, we treat with special
modesty”. (1 Corinthians
12:22-23) I guess being an
arm-pit for Jesus isn’t so bad after-all.
Thanks Paul.
As I
stated in the last chapter, I was healed of Juvenile Diabetes in a
Sunday morning meeting, so good things do happen in Sunday meetings.
My point here is that there’s much more to church than meetings
and buildings. I actually
think we’d be more effective and more Biblically correct if we spent
less time in meetings and more time serving others as Jesus’
representatives. A miracle
of sorts took place in church in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.
Guitars somehow got sanctified, or should I say “entirely
sanctified” as the Methodist doctrine puts it. If
you don’t know, the word sanctified in Christian terms means that
something is “set apart
for the work of the Lord’. So
dad got to travel from church to church playing his steel guitar with
others because his guitar could now be used for Jesus. They’d sing and
share their testimonies. Every
place my dad went he’d tell the story of his conversion and my
healing. So I sat through
countless meetings in total embarrassment just knowing that every eye
was focused on “little Stevie” as I was affectionately called - the
little boy who Jesus healed. I’ll
never forget how Jesus healed me because it’s been burned into my
consciousness from those days. I
actually got to tell the story of my dad being “born again” as he
called it on his behalf while he was on his death bed.
It was around 8:15 PM on June 7, 2001 when my dad’s neighbour
came to visit him in the hospital. I
asked the neighbour if he had heard how my dad became a Christian.
He knew my dad was a Christian but he didn’t recall hearing the
story. I don’t know how my
dad missed him. He didn’t normally miss anybody.
So as dad lay unable to speak, I spoke for him.
My wife Dianne noticed one tear slip from my dad’s eye and roll
down his cheek as I spoke. What
a way for my dad to leave this world for the next.
By 9:05 PM, 30 minutes after I finished the story and 15 minutes
after we asked Jesus to take him, he was gone.
I got to tell his story one last time before he left us, and I
guess I just told it again in this book, didn’t I?
So I know
that Jesus has done lots in a Sunday morning meeting, but Scripturally
speaking, the Christian life is not about Sunday meetings or the
buildings we gather in. It’s
about what I call “functional relationships”.
Just find a friend and the two of you ask Jesus what you can do
for Him. When a number of us do that we experience church, the Body of
Christ in action. It’s not
organizational. It’s
relational. Many of us like
being organizational because we can attend a meeting without actually
doing anything. That isn’t
New Testament thinking. I
don’t believe I’m splitting hairs here. I
believe I’m stating the intent of 1
Corinthians chapters 12 through 14 which you might want to read again.
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