Life principle 2

We are not called to 'run a church' but to be His people in the context of our culture.

This is a radical shift in thinking for me. For a long time I have thougth my 'job' was to 'run a church' ie. provide an organization (programs, etc) for people to come to faith, grow, and live as Christians. But I have come to believe that our first and foremost calling is simply to enable people to become part of his kingdom and practice his ways. The church is simply a tool to help us do that, not the goal or end product. The focus shifts from 'keeping the church going' to 'keeping people going.

This means that when we are looking at what the 'church' should be doing, the question to ask is, 'What do we need to have, or do, corporately to enable us to live as Christians in our culture today?' For example we often set up a 'kids program' to attract adults to come to our 'church' (I know on the surface we say it's because the kids need to learn about Jesus, etc. but lets be honest, often it's because we know parents will go to the church down the street if they have a better 'kid's ministry' than ours.)

Jesus spent all of his time calling people to 'sign up' to live out his principles, and helping them learn how to do that. He spend no time setting up an organization. Nor did he call or conscript or commission people to run an organization. This must say something to us when we spend so much of our time and energy building buildings and running programs. And running committees to run the building programs and running committess to run the programs etc .... It seems there is little time for the average church goer to actually 'live out the kingdom principles.' Most of their energy is spent just keeping the 'church' running.

If our main focus becomes 'being the people of God [a kingdom of heaven people]' in our culture, what do you think would change in the average church? Opinions? Ideas?