As a classroom teacher and principal, I always noticed that a classroom or a school had a collective personality--a group mentality and character--in addition to that of the individuals present.
Similarly, churches have a group mentality and character, led by a pastor who helps to shape the direction of growth and personal development.
Ephesians 4:11-13:
[Jesus] handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ's followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ's body, the church, until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.Moving rhythmically and easily with each other in order to accomplish our skilled servant work, living fully mature, fully developed within and without, and fully alive like Christ is quite the calling. It requires skilled leadership and willing followers; personal agendas must be set aside for a wholesale surrender to God's agenda for each specific church.
Dissension cannot survive in a church that is seeking to be fully alive like Christ, integrating the step-by-step revelation of God's agenda for that body. When the preponderance of the group character is to follow God's agenda, not our own, the rhythm of the body moving easily with each other will ferret out the discord brought about by other agendas.
God alone can filter our agendas, both individually and collectively. He knows what agenda we bring to church and challenges us to move into the efficiency and grace that unity in response to God's Son brings.
Tomorrow: Matthew 13, gravel and the soil of character.
