We are the church. The body of our Lord. We are all God's children and we have been restored. The church is not a building where people go to pray. It's not made up of sticks and stones and it's not made up of clay...
This was a song we sang at Green Lake Bible Camp every summer.
Haggai's singular task was to get God's people to work at rebuilding the Temple. Our stained glass windows and garden are unbelievably beautiful. Our rebuilding task at Faith now is more about building up the body. Five months ago, we started the conversation with spiritual giftedness. 74 of our 400ish members have taken this task to heart. Most are living directly out of the gifts God has given them. We're learning more every day about passionate spirituality and how to live it out individually and corporately.
We are encouraged to "take a good hard look at our lives".
The verse that speaks most to our culture is "while you've run around, caught up with taking care of your own houses, my Home is in ruins". As I said before, our church building isn't falling down. It has taken a few months to stabilize our budget, but we're basically breaking even now.
Haggai preached God's message to the people: "I am with you!"
That's what got them moving, got them working on the Temple.
God is with us. His Spirit is moving in our midst. Let's take care of God's Home with an eye toward the future. We are the church. Let's build up the body.
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hi - 1st great post! 2nd strange question... i am looking for all the lyrics to "the church song" which you quoted at the begining of this blog - i want to include it in a talk i am giving for a retreat at the begining of August. i remember parts of the song, but not the whole thing. Can you help me with the lyrics?? You can email me at windie _ 1 at hot mail dot com.
ReplyDeletethanks for your help!:)
~w