Christ’s church isn’t powerless, but yours might be …

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The conversation I had recently with a pastor was not an uncommon one. The church where he serves had started its descent into the throes of death prior to his arrival, and not much had changed since.

At the heart of the problem is that the people in this congregation, including its leaders, have forgotten that their local body isn’t their church.

It’s not the preacher’s church, either.

Neither is it the elders’ church.

Or the community’s church.

The fact of the matter is, that local faith family is Christ’s church, but they had long since forgotten that all-important fact.

Decades of treating this church like it belonged to them instead of belonging to Christ resulted in robbing this congregation of any power to make an impact on the community they are a part of, or even within their own faith community. Instead of being Christ’s church that operated from the power of Christ, in the image of Christ, for the glory of Christ, it had become a church that was powerless as it operated in the image of itself.

After all, it was “their church.”

These people had forgotten these vital words of Jesus …

Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. – John 15:5.

L.S. Bauman wrote an interesting story for “Adult Quarterly” as follows …

    The early Church had little machinery, but they had power. A young woman, a member of my church, worked in a large umbrella factory (in Philadelphia), at that time considered the largest umbrella factory in the world. She said to me one day, in a discouraged manner, “Pastor, I’ll have to hunt another job.”

    “What’s the matter?” I asked her, “have they discharged you?”

    “No, they haven’t discharged me.”

    “Well, hasn’t your factory enough orders to keep going all the time?”

    “No, not that at all. They have more orders than they can fill; but they haven’t enough electricity to keep all the machines going at once, and my machine has to lie idle part of the week, and I lose so much time and pay. The trouble with the factory is, they have more machinery than power.”

Bauman concluded his story with this: “Let us not forget that the finest ma­chinery made is useless without power, and it is God’s power which is ESSENTIAL to the carrying out of the Great Commission.”

There’s a lot of “machinery” in the church today, but little power. The finest gatherings on Sundays are useless without the power of the One who is the head of the church …

“Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything,” Colossians 1:18.

Jesus Christ certainly should be first in His own church! When He is, there is His power enabling the congregation to be His body. When He isn’t, you have withering branches disconnected from the life-giving vine. Which describes the church you’re a part of?

Scotty