House Church Talk - Pattern or simply an adaptation?

[Bruce Woodford]

Hi Cliff,

You posed a couple of excellent questions!"I occasionally wonder if the 
church in its infancy should look like the church in its maturity?"

Like our physical bodies, the church has many members linked to one Head and 
to each other. The body of a newborn baby is complete, has unity amongst 
it's members right from the start and all are linked to the head. But 
newborn babies do NOT behave like mature adults!  As an infant grows and 
matures, its' members become more and more profficient at relating one to 
another and ministering to each other.

But in the church, it seems that our relational capabilities have decreased 
rather than developed!  We seem to relate less (more poorly) on a personal 
level (one anothering), on  a gathering level (ministering of gifts to each 
other as good stewards of the manifold grace of God), on a community level 
(being together of one accord) and on an international scale of ministry 
amongst churches of many nations, than did the believers and churches of the 
first century.

Have been pondering these things a lot lately and I'm wondering if at least 
a couple of root problems (which mitigate against liberty in our 
relationships) may include the following:
(a) A limitted appreciation of the cross and the fact that we are crucified 
to the world and the world to us (Gal.6:14)...resulting in self-motivation 
and an obligation based religiosity which breeds critical spirits ands 
results in rejection and many broken relationships.
(b)An almost universally accepted denominationalism which controls and 
separates various sections of the body from the others and prohibits 
ministry between them.

(2)You also asked:"If all of a sudden all the Christians started meeting in 
homes across the world, would God desire us to form relationships between 
the different cities and counties and what would
they look like?"

Brother Cliff, just as God never instructs us to "organize" unity or "form" 
unity, but simply to keep/guard the unity which He has established 
(Eph.4:3), I don't think our responsibility is to form relationships between 
gatherings, cities, counties etc, but rather to ACKNOWLEDGE that those 
relationships have always existed, but we have been denying them, 
restricting them, and prohibitting them through our own self-interest, 
desire for control and unwillingness to minister to or be ministered to by 
believers from differing backgrounds.

Many truths of scripture which are FACTS (i.e. forgiveness, justification, 
sanctification, our death and quickening with Christ and our being raised up 
to sit with Him in heavenly places) can only be enjoyed and appreciated when 
we actually TRUST God that what He has said about them is bedrock-solid 
fact. In like manner, the unity of the Spirit in the Body is an established 
fact, but only as we practically acknowledge that it is so in our 
relationships with the Father, the Son, the Spirit and with our brothers and 
sisters in Christ will we ever practically ENJOY the facts!

This is my present perception of the problem. What are your thoughts?

Your brother in Christ,
Bruce

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