Strategic Plan

[AzA]

Thanks for that -- that was helpful.

 

[Byfaithalone1]

Someone who can maintain their relationship with God, and show fruits of it, without needing to be hand held by other people.

In looking at this sentence, it seems that the noun of the sentence is "someone." I'm guessing that this means a human. Is that accurate?

Who maintains the relationship?

Who creates fruit?

Who holds our hand?

BFA

 

[Byfaithalone1]

The parenthetical makes it a bit difficult to respond, BFA.

I'm wondering whether an entity known as "the church" will remain, even if it takes on a new form.

For example, will there still be an entity that corresponds with the following:

Matthew 16:18
And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

Matthew 18:17
If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

Acts 20:28
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

1 Corinthians 6:4
Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church!

1 Corinthians 10:32
Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—

1 Corinthians 12:28
And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.

1 Corinthians 14:12
So it is with you. Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church.
​

BFA

 

[JonMiller]

So in the Catholic church, for example, a lot of people don't have much to do with God (in my understanding, I could be wrong). They have the Priest pray for them, read the Bible for them, etc...

Similarly, in the Adventist church, most people rely on pastors to call them to repent, to read the Bible for them, to tell them what to do/think/etc. This is the membership of the adventist church relying upon their pastors/etc to hold their hand and go to Christ for them. It is like my friend who use to be religious but isn't practicing anymore who, when he sees me praying, asks me to put in a good word for him.

And it is obvious that we have to do something to maintain the relationship with God. We must seek Him, at the very least.

We should bear fruit when following Christ, this is discussed many times in the Bible.

JM
(And I do pray for my friend, I pray for God to help him through the problems he faces/etc, but I don't 'put in a good word' when he asks.)

 

[Byfaithalone1]

We should bear fruit when following Christ, this is discussed many times in the Bible.

Where does that fruit come from?

And it is obvious that we have to do something to maintain the relationship with God. We must seek Him, at the very least.

But what if, in seeking Him, we don't even know what to pray?

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." Romans 8:26
​

Is it helpful to consider the source of all of the things you've indicated we should be doing?

BFA

 

[JonMiller]

So you take one verse, and extrapolate a lot based on it, and ignore the huge number of stories that Crhist told?

You seem to be very fond of basing your Christianity on an interpretation of one verse, rather than reading the Bible as a whole and gaining understanding that way.

JM

 

[Byfaithalone1]

So you take one verse, and extrapolate a lot based on it, and ignore the huge number of stories that Crhist told?

You seem to be very fond of basing your Christianity on an interpretation of one verse, rather than reading the Bible as a whole and gaining understanding that way.

JM

Who or what is the source of good fruit?

BFA

 

[JonMiller]

Christ working through us.

Since you like single verse statements (and I think to gain true understanding you have to read the whole) "By their fruits you will know them".

JM

 

[Byfaithalone1]

Christ working through us.

I prefer this statement to:

"Someone who can maintain their relationship with God, and show fruits of it."
​

It places the credit where credit is due.

BFA

 

[AzA]

I'm wondering whether an entity known as "the church" will remain, even if it takes on a new form....

I don't know; my current sense of God's intention for humanity is that we move through the limited towards the expansive. I don't think Adam and Eve in the garden were "the church," though I know some do. And yet God was fully commited to them; he didn't wait to become committed until the disciples had converted 3,000 folks or people started being mocked and called "Christians."

So I'm not persuaded by the idea that He is supremely in love with a form that didn't emerge until (at minimum) 5,000 years of oral Semitic history had come and gone. Perhaps one of my difficulties with that idea is that I'm not a Semite.

I would consider conceiving of "the church" as flowing into "the Kingdom" with the assumption that this is the same universal "kingdom" described in Daniel, the gospels, and Revelation. In which case it needs no walls and no name. It just is.

So whether this happens "in 80 years" or at all may be a separate discussion. I would love it to happen in 80 years or fewer. I just have found that the mode our churches operate in doesn't draw it closer or suggest that it's something the collective "we" wants to be a part of and commits to occupying through action.

We may sometimes see it afar off, but it's rare that we seek to approach it through our actions today. Adopting or returning to the way of being that Christ laid out in his teachings as the basis for "the Kingdom of God" would bring it out of potential and into form. Until we choose it over our status quo, it will remain in-potential.

 

[Byfaithalone1]

I don't know; my current sense of God's intention for humanity is that we move through the limited towards the expansive. I don't think Adam and Eve in the garden were "the church," though I know some do. And yet God was fully commited to them; he didn't wait to become committed until the disciples had converted 3,000 folks or people started being mocked and called "Christians."

So I'm not persuaded by the idea that He is supremely in love with a form that didn't emerge until (at minimum) 5,000 years of oral Semitic history had come and gone. Perhaps one of my difficulties with that idea is that I'm not a Semite.

I would consider conceiving of "the church" as flowing into "the Kingdom" with the assumption that this is the same universal "kingdom" described in Daniel, the gospels, and Revelation. In which case it needs no walls and no name. It just is.

So whether this happens "in 80 years" or at all may be a separate discussion. I would love it to happen in 80 years or fewer. I just have found that the mode our churches operate in doesn't draw it closer or suggest that it's something the collective "we" wants to be a part of and commits to occupying through action.

We may sometimes see it afar off, but it's rare that we seek to approach it through our actions today. Adopting or returning to the way of being that Christ laid out in his teachings as the basis for "the Kingdom of God" would bring it out of potential and into form. Until we choose it over our status quo, it will remain in-potential.

Thanks for the clarification!

BFA

 

[AzA]

You're welcome.

While I was at work today, I came across the following statement from former president Nixon, written in 1980. I'd heard it before but not known who said it:

Traditionally, the Chinese think in terms of millennia, the Russians in terms of centuries, the Europeans in terms of generations, and we Americans in terms of decades.