this is so good. just today i was thinking about the kingdom of God as I was on a cleaning gig. it is the only ideal society, the shangri-la we each dream for. And there is no map to get there. But there is a Person who shows us the way.

I so totally want to blog about this.

Thanks for the quote. For sure I'll be using it. (with proper attribution of course...)

Pam Hogeweide 285 days ago

Great stuff,I once wrote an article with this question.

Would Jesus start a church?

Jack Wolfe 285 days ago

Yeah, in all the parables I have read where Jesus says "The Kingdom of God is like this...", I haven't come across any mention of institutionalism, turf-wars, CEO salaries, clergy-laity differentiation, gender discrimination etc.  It's so good to be exploring a life of freedom from all that stuff, and yet hang out with people who love and live for Jesus...

Lucy J 285 days ago

Yeah, the vision of the Kingdom!  All things haed there and it makes the slog worthwhile.  One day God's dream for his world will be fulfilled.

Yay God!

Alan Hirsch 285 days ago

Humans like to domesticate things - dogs, cats, parrots etc . No different then to now. They are also highly inventive.  Perhaps the human invention of the Church was conceived as a way to domesticate and control God, as well as to invent a God in their own image?

What would we have now if we didn't have Church?

It is impossible to be what Jesus envisaged us to be unless He is in the midst of us guiding us.  That involves His incarnational Presence being not just `theoretical', but somehow `actualized' among us as followers of the Way. No human king can adequately replace Christ the King in promoting what is His Kingdom vision.

Andrew Park 284 days ago

I agree, what has been the challenge for so many years with institution of the church is when it comes to starting a church people almost dismiss the gospels all together. They run to the epistles to figure out leadership structure, church government, etc. I recently spent a year studying the sermon on the mount. No mention of church structure as we know it today, no mention of elders, deacons, etc. There was no mention of getting a building, in fact what I think is so cool is Jesus did not tell His disciples " listen I have a great message go get people and bring them back to me so I can share it." He was on the move living among them, Now I am not saying that should never get together but we have lost site of the Government that He is establishing in us and and among us. But it is changing.

The thing that hurts His message is dualism. Case and point when is the last time you ever saw some one brought up in front of the church to have hands laid on them because they were going to work at Starbucks? It does not happen we have laid hands on those going into "ministry" only reinforcing to those that work other jobs really do not make that much of a difference. It is what is not being said that creates this dualism.

On the point of the institution I once had a young man that was very hurt by the institution and told me that he would never have anything to do with something that had structure. I told him that structure is not bad, and reminded him that he had a skelton and with out it he would be nothing but a puddle of flesh. but his skelton was flexible.

OK that is enough for now, lets live it and inspire others to live it,

Jack Wolfe 283 days ago

And Jack, you are doing that well in Georgia bro.  Love whatyou are doing. 

Alan Hirsch 283 days ago

I have been thinking about the character that Jesus established in the fellowship that gathered around him during his ministry. These elements of "kingdom on earth" DNA can offer us a glimpse of what kind of fellowship that kingdom will form.  The early church was a mixture of those elements and good old human flesh.  The same humanity that we saw evidenced in the disciples as they jockeyed for position, included or excluded certain types of people, and tried to figure out Jesus and his sayings.  While I wish we could do better, I kind of think applying the principles that Jesus demonstrated within our lives AND fellowship, might just be a lifelong endeavor.

David Mills 283 days ago

Someone once told me, "Once you SEE the Kingdom, life will never be the same again."  

For a few years I was part of a community that had an ecclesiocentric perspective of God's mission.  It was all about the gathered church, hardly ever about the sent one.  Luckily, somewhere along the way though, we began to understand the Kingdom.  Thank God!  The thing is, because of the dualism that existed (as Jack pointed out in his comment above), the tendency of focus was always toward the institution, the building, the programmed and ordained ministry. It seemed that because of how we "did" church... we failed to "be" the church - a witness to the Kingdom of God - out in the world where it was needed most.

May Jesus Christ be our One and Only guide.  May we all continue to see the Kingdom more and more.  May life truly never be the same again.

Denise 281 days ago

All things head there and it makes the slog worthwhile.  

Slog. I love that word. And I love ReJesus. Your vocabulary inspires me. Now I have to write a sentence with both words.

Let's inspire one another to slog through the wilderness of traditionalism and ReJesus ourselves along the way.

Pam Hogeweide 281 days ago