November 9th, 2008 ---- by Todd

After a long delay, I thought it would be good to start walking through the nine themes covered in “Emerging Churches” by Gibbs and Bolger.  The first is “identifying with Jesus,” which seems pretty general and something every church probably claims for themselves.

In the emerging church, identifying with Jesus takes the form of  emphasizing the kingdom of God as the telos of the church.  This changes the direction of the church “from a centripetal (flowing in) to a centrifugal (flowing out) dynamic.  This in turn [leads] to a shift in emphasis from attacting crowds to equipping, dispersing, and multiplying Christ followers as a central function of the church (50-51).”  The point of church is not to get as many people as possible to come to a worship service on Sunday morning.  Rather, the point of church is to participate in the kingdom of God by focusing on discipleship or following Jesus.

In my opinion, a gift of the house church is the fact that it is not dependent on the number of people who show up on a given Sunday.  Since it is a small group that is not recognized as a formal institution, it will only be recognized by the ways that the group flows out into their local and global communities.

Emphasizing the kingdom of God as the telos of the church moves away from an understanding of the gospel as simply a matter of personal salvation.  Yes, personal salvation is certainly a part of the gospel, but it is not the whole story.  Many churches I am familiar with see as their mission to get as many people as possible “saved.”  The gospel is good news for individual sinners.  Emerging churches tend to see the gospel as God reconciling, restoring and redeeming the entire world.  The gospel is good news for the entire world  Therefore, the mission of the church is not just about saving individuals, but about participating with God in God’s work of reconciliation, restoration and redemption.

To summarize, for the emerging church, identifying with Jesus means moving the church outward instead of expecting movement inward, and seeing salvation as the kingdom of God, which is holistic and not individualistic.

I certainly resonate with this understanding of what it means to follow Jesus.  Do you?

4 Responses to “Talking Logistics #1: Identifying w/ Jesus”

  1. Erik Says:
    November 10th, 2008 at 5:33 am

    Todd, i think you said this but didn’t say much about it. EVERY church claims this a their telos. I think churches really need to flesh this out, that is a major need i believe in the church. And this conversation could go a millions ways.

    But as this post specifically applies to community planting i wonder how this works?

    When you are planting a new community of Jesus followers i think there are things you want to weave into the churches DNA (as they say all to often). But to have this concept of Kingdom at the core, as a foundation of your community is a tricky thing i think.

    I think you articulate the value of a life poured out, a people moving toward others but in order to do this you have to have people come in so they can follow out. Does that make sense?

    I guess my query here is how does the community plant do this?
    i understand how your house churches does this a little better?
    I understand how an existing church does this.
    But how does a new community that is still trying to figure out who they are and why are do this?
    I think they do, because it’s a deep part of who they are but how do you balance this with the movement of growth (which seems inward in your of words)? But probably natural and important.

    And is this the first think we should focus on?
    or is that not the point here?

  2. Theresa Seeber Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 4:51 am

    This is just what we are working through right now. We do not go to church, we are the church. But the church has not been living up to the Creator’s dream for her lately, in a lot of ways. We are being called to radical discipleship, and it is a jump from the place of fire-insurance-dealership mentality that we have come from. I want to live the gospel, not just preach it. But it does not look like I thought it would. It is not about prestige or power, but rather about servanthood and humility and self-sacrifice. I do not seek to stand up and point the way, I seek to lead the way by example, doing and serving and living alongside as equals to the people who desire to come alongside me as I go in His way.

  3. Mike Bailey Says:
    October 30th, 2009 at 2:59 am

    Jesus is the way into the kingdom. Then the kingdom of God grows within and expands out into the world. Jesus is the King of the kingdom.

  4. Ed Says:
    January 7th, 2010 at 6:10 pm

    very precise and to the point blog post on a very informative subject.

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