I want to share a great passage from some 'simple church' friends in Europe. Learn more about their work here.
The Kingdom of God is built on the person of Jesus, what he taught the disciples and what he instructed them to do. Building a foundation on anything other than Jesus and the Kingdom will not produce multiplication of disciples and simple churches. Jesus is both Saviour and Lord with power over all things visible and invisible. He is Lord of the harvest and head of the Church worldwide and every local church. He cannot and will not be owned by any denomination, tradition, organisation or “ministry.”
The (inherited) paradigm most Christians have is downside up:
-- first, ecclesiology (church, dogma, style and practices);
-- secondly, missiology (mission – how to attract people to our church community or building);
-- and thirdly, Christology (so we can tell them about our church and Jesus).
The Kingdom paradigm is, however, upside down:
-- first, Jesus and the Kingdom (His person, His Kingdom);
-- secondly mission (go and make disciples);
-- and thirdly, church (which is built by Jesus and the consequence of disciples making disciples).
Working from a Kingdom paradigm means people come to Jesus (or discipled to him), continue in transformational discipleship, and church forms out of who they are and what Jesus is building amongst them – not out of a church system that we impose on them. This means that simple churches and networks vary in form and style even though they have a common foundational Kingdom DNA. Consequently, the gospel spreads quickly and naturally through households and people groups without the constraints of restrictive traditional, denominational and organisational boundaries with their religious biases, forms and styles. This primary allegiance to Jesus and the common foundational DNA facilitates unity, cooperation and expansion: simple churches may be different, even within the same network as well as from network to network, but all are disciples joined to Jesus and His Body. Read more.
Kingdom fruit comes out of alignment with Kingdom perspective. What adjustments might this lead to as we look at disciple making and church gatherings?
