A God Centered Church

Here we are, January of 2008 and I am being amazed at how God is speaking. I am reading one book in particular that is resounding in my heart with every page. It is called "A God Centered Church" by Henry and Mel Blackaby. I believe that God is in the process of teaching us what His church is to look like as we are moving toward the future and I am learning a lot from this book in particular. Here are a few quotes to hopefully whet your appetite and encourage you to go out and buy this book and read it for such a time as this. ~Jon


"Jesus established the church as a divine institution for the proclamation and extension of the kingdom. The church is not need-centered or people-centered but God-centered. When a church is God centered, they will know His awesome presence. When God grants His presence to a church, He expresses His wisdom, His power, and His activity to accomplish His purposes." (pg xii-xiii of the introduction)

"Our problem is that we are capable of running a religious organization, and we have learned to do it well. But too often our standard for evaluating the success of our church is to observe how large it has become. Church growth is not the biblical standard to evaluate the health of a church. A church can grow through effective marketing, but Christ may not have anything to do with it. Jesus said, 'I will build my church.' Yet we run around to church growth conferences to discover how we can build a successful church. Most conferences do not tell us how to recognize the activity of Jesus as He builds His church. Jesus, in this passage, gave two criteria: (1) the gates of hell will be coming down, and (2) we will be using the keys to the kingdom of heaven to free people from the bondage of sin and bring them into the presence of God." (pg 16)

Jesus' "...strategy of evangelism is the interdependence of each member related to the body and following Christ as the Head." (pg 17)

Speaking about the church in Acts 2, it says, "The striking characteristic of this moment was that they could not get enough fellowship. They loved to be together, for they experienced God together....They met daily and grew to have one mind and heart. The fellowship went from the temple to the homes and into the streets. Their relationship with one another was an essential part of God's plan. As they gave God the glory, He continued to add to their number day after day. That was the result of an encounter with God; that was the result of God's great salvation.

Whereas sin leads to independence and self centeredness, salvation leads to radical interdependence and Christ-centeredness. The sign of a healthy Christian, who has been set free from sin, is interdependence with other believers and commitment to function within the body of Christ." (pg 19)

"Over the last few decades, the focus has shifted away from God's people to evangelism and the lost. However, significant evangelism is a by-product of what God does with His people. If we bypass the people of God, we have shut down evangelism. But when we help the people of God know who they are in Christ and what God purposed for their lives through salvation, the world will be turned upside down." (pg 21)