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Mega-city Churches 7: Facing in

June 17, 2007

Disciples are always going out with the message from the Father and gathering together in the body of the Son where the Spirit of God meets with them and builds them together as one body. And that building together is one of the hardest parts of discipling.

We began this series by asking how the church can grow in a mega-city. One of the difficulties concerns making disciples. But this difficulty is not peculiar to the mega-city. Indeed it may be easier in a big city where traditional customs and habits are looser and where people are already adapting to new ways of life.

However another difficulty concerns the gathering of the disciples into churches where they can build each other up. I take it that the heart of church is fellowship and growing together in Christ. This means that church is the meeting of Jesus’ followers in which they can be his fellowship and enjoy and share his life.

But because we are not yet in heaven, this gathering also has a focus on helping the body and the individuals grow up into Christ, so that individually and together they become more like Jesus (so that the world can see by their love for one another that they are Jesus’ disciples and not disciples of someone else).

Paul thought that one of the main purposes of meeting as church was to edify or build each other up. And he thought that this was something that each person had some role in. The bible does not seem to have any concept of passive attending of meetings nor of disciples being entertained. It does have a string view of them being edified – primarily through the ministry of the word of God to each other.

Once again Paul, who had a lot to say, thought that although this might be done in a major way by prophets, apostles and teachers, it also was to be done by all the members of the body in some way. That is why the dominant idea of church in the New Testament is meeting.

Disciples need to meet if they are going to be built up together. And when they do meet, they need to be able to talk to each other about what builds them up – that is the word that has come from God. And they need to pray for each other, and encourage each other, and bear each others burdens, and teach each other. So now we are getting closer to the problems of mega-city churches.

Dale

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