| Chapter
18: What Sort of Church
Contents:
“anyone
who has faith in me will do what I have been doing”
(John
14:12)
As we conclude this second book on creating a secure church, can
we look back over some of the things we've covered and now try to get
an overview of the whole thing, asking the question, what sort of church
will we be?
18.1
A Review
Chapter
1 – The Need
•
Do we see the need within the church,
and within the world, to
work for creating a secure church?
Chapter
2 – History
•
Do we understand the characteristics
that make for a secure
church?
•
Can we acknowledge the things that work
against that in
reality?
Chapter
3 – Strange People
•
Do we understand the concept of ‘strange'
or ‘different' people
as being one we need to counter and work against
if we are to
create a secure church?
Chapter
4 – Imperfect People
•
Do we understand the concept of ‘imperfect'
people or ‘slow
changing' people as being concepts we need to counter
and
work against if we are to create a secure church?
Chapter
5 - Togetherness
•
Do we understand the New Testament teaching
revealing
corporate church life?
•
Do we understand the potential of togetherness
in church life?
•
Do we understand and can we live with
immaturity in church
life?
Chapter
6 Confession
•
Do we understand the importance of confession
in church life?
•
Do we understand the things that make
confession easy in a
secure church?
Chapter
7 - Team
•
Do we understand the concept and value
of ‘team' in
leadership?
•
Do we understand the concept and value
of accountability?
Chapter
8 – Relationship Strategies
•
Do we understand the need to communicate
the vision of a
secure church?
•
Do we understand the practical things
that can be considered
to help people feel secure on Sunday morning and
at midweek
meetings?
Chapter
9 – Mentoring
•
Do we understand the call to be a people
who change and grow
and mature?
•
Do we understand the difference between
discipling and
mentoring?
Chapter
10 - Preaching
•
Do we understand what it means to be
a secure preacher?
•
Do we understand some of the things that
make a
congregation secure in preaching?
•
Do we understand the distinction between
legalism and grace?
Chapter
11 - Gifts
•
Do we understand the benefit of prophecy
in the church?
•
Do we understand the checks and balances
to create a church
that is secure with prophecy?
•
Do we understand some of the dynamics
of creating a secure
church when there is deliverance ministry?
•
Do we understand some of the dynamics
of creating a secure
church when there is prayer for healing?
Chapter
12 – Light to the World
•
Do we understand our call to be a light
to rest of the world?
•
Do we have a complete confidence in the
Gospel?
•
Do we have channels for taking God's
blessing to the world?
•
Have we thought through the problem of
accessibility for
potential visitors?
Chapter
13 – Correction Theory
•
Do we understand the need to consider
correction and the
variety of approaches?
•
Do we understand how difficult it is
to lay down standards of
right and wrong?
•
Do we have a full view of God's approach
to correction as\seen
in the Bible?
Chapter
14 – Correction Practice
•
Do we understand the needs for different
forms of correction?
•
Do we understand the distinction between
the need for
confrontation and the need for teaching or discipling?
•
Do we understand some of the needed dynamics
for
confrontation?
•
Do we understand the distinctions between
reconciliation,
restitution and restoration and difficulties that
arise?
Chapter
15 - Disagreeing
•
Do we understand some of the basic reasons
why
disagreements arise?
•
Do we understand the types of disagreement
that arise in
church life?
Chapter
16 - Conflict
•
Do we understand what we mean by ‘conflict'
and the nature
of different types of conflict?
•
Do we understand the effects of unresolved
conflicts?
•
Do we understand how to help an Offender
acknowledge and
deal with their offence?
•
Do we understand how to help an Offended
person deal with
their offence?
•
Do we understand what is needed to walk
out reconciliation?
Chapter
17 – Forgiveness
•
Do we understand the dynamics of Scriptural
Forgiveness?
•
Do we understand how God forgives?
•
Do we understand some of the things that
helped an offended
person come to peace?
18.2
And Us Generally?
And
so as we move further into the twenty-first century, how will we go?
In
our churches,
•
Will we worry about minutiae of doctrine,
purity of practice, exclusion of the ungodly, and denouncing of
those with whom we appear to disagree?
or
•
Will we create a powerful community
of loving, caring and accepting people, who know what they believe but
can tolerate and love those with slightly varying viewpoints, who are
secure enough in themselves to love those who are clearly different
from them?
In
our churches
•
Will we be inward looking, concerned only
for ourselves, our worship, our prayer meetings, our Bible Studies?
or
•
Will we be secure and filled with
the love of God, looking out to share the love of God with all who will
receive it, whatever they look like, whatever they sound like?
•
Will we continue with a form of religion
that so often pretends, that so often ignores the needs that are there,
that so often maintains a structure without a heart?
or
•
Will we work to create a community
where people are able to be themselves, able to be real, able to acknowledge
their concerns, knowing they will still be loved and accepted, so that
the love of Jesus can reach them and bring transformation, and where
grace abounds?
In
our churches,
•
Will we maintain a superficiality, a look-good
environment that looks good on the outside but is worried, anxious and
upset on the inside
or
•
Will we become a community of truth
where ‘what you see is what you get', where joy and sorrow co-exist
alongside each other and truth abounds because people know it is acceptable
because grace is there to meet it when truth creates embarrassment or
upset?
These are some of the key questions that face the church
in the West in the early years of the new millennium. Can we become a
secure church?
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