Army of Priests

I wonder a lot about the power of names. In particular, I wonder about their effects on groups of people and whether a name creates a better sense of identity and commitment, or if instead they create a sense of exclusion where people can be describes as inside or outside the group.

To explain why I wonder about this let me explain my current situation. My local faith community has no name. This is in a large part due the the fact that we have no formal programs and no formal leaders (we do have leaders but not in the traditional sense). The only way you can define my church is through its participants.

My church is just a big group of people from the surrounding suburbs (some of whom are part of local congregations, some are not). We frequently arrange church-like activities but these things are transitive. Tonight I am catching up with a few guys for some food and a spiritual discussion. We often do this on Mondays, but we don’t always, and in a months time we might not at all. Sometimes we arrange to meet up for prayer. Sometimes we just hang out, and might end up discussing the bible.

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This is another quote from my journal that was written several years ago. It is very interesting to read these thoughts as we are going through a transitional phase in the local faith community at the moment.

I thought a better way to express simple church principals (than I had used before). It is:

• Every Christian a Disciple
• Every Christian a Minister
• Every Christian a Missionary
• Every Christian a Church Planter
• Every Christian a Family Member

None of these principals are expressed in legacy churches.

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The words of Hampton Keathley:

We live in an entertainment-centred, spectator-oriented society. Most people spend much time watching TV, movies, sporting events, etc. but little time actually involved in playing the sports they watch. Coach Bud Wilkinson, Oklahoma football coach, once described a football game the following way: Thousands sit in the stands in desperate need of exercise while 22 men are on the football field in desperate need of rest.

I think that we have carried the spectator mentality into the church. Although I don’t think we would get too many people to say it out loud, many people come to church to be entertained and to be ministered to. They have the idea that ministry is what the professionals do. We pay the pastor to minister to us. If we go back to our football analogy, we have a congregation full of people who need to get some exercise and a few professionals who are in desperate need of rest.

One or two pastors can’t possibly meet the needs of 500 or even 100 people with one or two messages per week. To really minister to someone you need to spend time with them and develop a close relationship.

He was bloody.

A death blow had been struck against his chest and he stumbled along in the streets – grabbing light poles and chairs to keep himself steady. Onlookers watched with a mixture of disbelief and disgust. If only he hadn’t been fooling around, they thought. They knew they were better than him.

Finally, as he collapsed and was near his end, an elderly man grabbed him firmly and commanded, “No. You are not sick.” The gentleman then took a bandage made of fine linen from the far away deserts of Denial and wrapped him firmly. In a few minutes the wounded man was fine again, and stood up as if by miracle.

Why is everyone standing around? The onlookers thought. There’s nothing to see here. He never did look that bad to me. Thus the wounded man went about his life for a few days with no problem. There never really was a problem after all. The man chided himself for being such a hypochondriac.

But no matter how much he willed it he never could quite mentally block out the niggling pain and after a few days some blood started seeping through the fabric the gentleman had given him. So the next day he decided to go down to the megacenter on Greed Street and get himself a new and improved bandage.

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I went to a large church a fair way from where I live last Sunday night. The building was very impressive. The music was like a rock concert – with swirling lights, loud music, and even a mosh pit. The sermon was comfortable, and at the end we were all asked to close our eyes and bow our heads whilst any new converts “raised their hand” (a rather interesting interpretation of Mathew 10:32). The people were all very young and at the end I asked the people with me if they could find anyone who was not a middle-class, white Anglo-Saxon. We counted 2. Out of at least 400 (it was a night time service over the holidays).

The atmosphere was good. I enjoyed the service. But I also knew that I hadn’t really worshiped God. I hadn’t heard his word. I hadn’t seen people saved. I had jumped to contemporary music with a strong beat. I had listened to a guy preach to the choir. And I had seen some people be converted – only to return to their old lives this week.

I left that service thinking it was like a drug. A spiritual high. An addiction which the congregation was indulging in every week oblivious to the effects it had on their lives during the week.

Spiritual Masturbation

Shane Claiborne calls this feel good spirituality “spiritual masturbation”. I can hardly think of a better term. Countless times I’ve attended worship services more bent on making me feel good than in making me feel God. The lighting is just right. The pews are positioned correctly. I can predict the rhythms of the service – when the beat will speed up or slow down, when they’ll stop for prayer, or when a “clap offering” is coming. Too often I feel like I haven’t worshiped God unless I raise my hands and “ooh” and “aah” in ecstasy.

But when I really encounter and worship God I find myself on my knees. My life laid bare, my failings so clear in the light of His glory. All my pursuits and dreams seem like foolishness and I beg him for mercy. It is a decidedly uncomfortable experience -but a life changing one.

In short, I often seek a counterfeit form of worship that makes me feel good over real worship that is honouring to God. And this is only one issue. I think most Christians are not Christians for God’s sake, but for their own. Consider:

The Building – we spend millions to keep ourselves comfortable. We create spaces where it is “safe” to meet God. Yet did we ever thing that God would be more glorified if we danced in the streets and preached in the parks? If we invited people into our homes rather than just our halls? Or if we invested the money in the poor rather than the Air Con? (Recently at a local church there was a meeting to discuss installing air conditioning for the amazingly ‘cheap’ cost of $18000. One of my friends stood up before this meeting and said that it isn’t all that cheep when you consider that for $17000 we could provide clean water and irrigation for an African community and save thousands of lives in the long run. They ended up installing the air con.)

The Distance – the word “fellowship” is one that is only ever used in Christian circles (and the lord of the rings). I’ve come to conclude that it is code for “making us look like we have a more meaningful relationship than we actually do”. From the moment I walk into church I am handed a newsletter from a woman with such a grin she looks like she is meeting an old friend. I can’t even remember her name. Over biscuits and coffee I people (who I hadn’t seen since the previous service) ask me, “how are you?” but they don’t really care, so I reply, “fine” because I don’t really care either. We stand in pews looking at the back of each other’s heads, only hearing what the people on the stage have to say rather than what the heart of the person next to me is wishing to scream. And in the end we depart for another week, each of us feeling complacent with the “fellowship” but none of us having actually given anything.

The Preaching – I can’t remember last time I heard a sermon in an IC (and I’ve been to a fair few) that actually challenged me. Time and again they do nothing but reinforce what I learnt in my first few years as a Christian; repeating the globally accepted and safe cliches of my religion. I can certainly understand the conundrum of the pastor here – if he challenges us too much people will feel uncomfortable and leave. Oh, how far we have fallen.

I could go on. My my point is that for the most part Western Christianity has become a commodity (we pay in tithes – it is quite literally a transaction for religious services) that promises Comfort and Security – exactly the two addictions the empire of the world controls us with! Religion has become nothing more than the opium of the masses. Rather than creating a dangerous, counter-cultural kingdom we have, as Alison Morgan says, “set up private clubs for people whose leisure interest is religion.”

Loving God

Have we even begun to be Christians? Jesus dies on the cross, giving us hope for new life, and calls us to love him in return. But instead we rape Him; using him for our emotional or spiritual highs, our political goals, or our life improvement programs. Jesus has become nothing more than the solution for our problems (like hell); and whilst he IS the solution to our problems he is also our Lord and King and deserves not merely our requests but also our offerings.

The end pursuit of Christianity is not our salvation, or our “coming alive”, or our healing. It is God’s glorification. We’ll be saved and come alive in the process but those things are not the end, they are the means to an end. In our truly counter-cultural religion Christ literally calls us to abandon or “lay down” our lives for his sake to find what we were really made to live for. Die to find life. It’s a life that only comes when we abandon the pursuit of happiness and instead make the service of God our life goal.

Love is not a feeling we get when we worship in Church. Love is an action. It’s an action that leads to a wide range of feelings – from ecstasy to sorrow. It’s a choice to wake up each morning and say “God, today I will glorify you with my life. Today I will not make my satisfaction my goal but rather hope to find it in the service of you. But even if I do not, I will still live for you because you are holy and the one I love.”

Continuing from part 1…

7. Religion is superficial

Religion is more about what we are doing on the outside than about what is happening on the inside. Our concern is far more with what people are doing than who they are becoming. A common frustration for me is that people are far more concerned with what I do on a Sunday morning than whether I am showing fruit of the spirit, or whether I am engaged in a Christian community during the week.

There are many people who have been in religion for a very long time who are devoid of spiritual fruit. These sad people have perfected religious practices but have become numb to the conviction of God. They turn up to Church wearing their Sunday best every week, they sport large smiles, and they can repeat the bible verse by verse. However, they’ll spread rumours behind your back, they will disassociate with you if you do not live up to their standards, and they will complain if anything is “out of order”.

Someone is an expert at religion if they read their bible every week, but there is no requirement on how that influences their life. This is why people can read about starving Jesus in Mathew 25 and then walk past the hungry on their way to Church. Meanwhile they are completely blind to their fault because they measure their progress against their religious activity instead of their character.

6. Religion causes us to judge

Because religion is superficial, it makes it easy to judge people based on what we see. In a recent post on x3church a story is told of an ex-porn producer who is now being questioned by the CPS (child protective services). Some Christian thought that because this sinner’s past did not live up to his standards that he must be a horrible father.

Why can’t we understand that we are all sinners? We are all sickos. We are all wretches. How dare we assume that because someone does not live up to our superficial standards that they must be worse than us? Because religion is superficial and because religion makes us forget how desperate we are it makes it easy for us to condemn others.

Although I spend many hours praying, I am just as much a sinner as someone who does none. Although I have many years of church experience I am still as desperately in need of God’s grace as a drug addict, or a prostitute, or an atheist. Compared to God we are all nothing, this is the great equalizer.

5. Religion stops us from thinking about what we are doing

Religion encourages us to just do our practises rather than stop and ask “why?” It is naturally assumed that going to Church is good for us. We have been told this since we became Christians. We may have even been told some reasons for this. But we never really ask “Why do we ‘go to’ Church?”, “Why do we dress up?”, “Why do we come together just so that we can listen to a sermon?”, “Why do we need a church building?”, “Why do we have to follow a set program?”, or “Why do we pay for all this expensive equipment?”

When you begin to ask this you may find that church is an end in itself or you may find a greater reason to attend church than you have ever had before. I am culling a few of my religious activities at the moment upon realising that they were a waste of time. For other people these activities could be highly useful. The important issue is that we do things for a purpose and not just because we have been told it is a good thing to do.

4. Religion limits imagination

Religion limits us to a set of pre-defined practises rather than encouraging us to find unique solutions to problems. Admittedly there are many exceptions to this rule, but often people have to force themselves to think outside the box rather than letting it be a natural thing.

Here is a theoretical example. Say you want to teach a group of young youths about poverty. The most common first reaction would be to hold a talk on it, maybe show a video someone had done. Then you may consider doing a study on poverty. Chances are that your last thought would be to take them into the city for the night and show them poverty.

Sermons or presentations or studies are typical religious practices. Therefore they are the first things that come into our mind when we want to address a spiritual issue. Someone may be having trouble understanding something. Our first piece of advice may be “read the bible more” but perhaps they really need to pray more. Because religious practice is formulaic we look at what we want and then find the correct formula to get it.

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Last night (Saturday) some friends were over my house and as they were leaving I informed them that I would not see them at church tomorrow (today – actually it is on as I write this). One of my friends jokingly referred to me as a “non-religious heathen”. I thanked him for the compliment.

I’m a Christian, but I hate religion. Before I continue allow me to specify my definition for religion as a Google search of “define: religion” yields a wide variety of results. I think of religion is a set of spiritual practises that someone deems necessary. These practises could include going to church, or reading your bible, or praying every morning. These practises become religious when someone says “people should attend Church” or “we are meant to meditate on the bible day and night”. It places emphasis on the means rather than on the end which could be reached by any number of means. For example, we read the bible to learn, but we could learn through Christian books, prayer, or by simply thinking things through. Therefore the idea that “we are meant to meditate on the bible day and night” places an emphasis on the means rather than the end; an emphasis on which would sound like “we should learn about God”.

So, this is why I hate religion:

10. Religion is all about me

Religion encourages us to seek out what is best for ourselves. Even the gospel message is often presented with an emphasis on what we get out of it. If we have faith or if we have works (depending on your beliefs) we get eternal life. The focus is entirely on us.

Religious practise is almost always done for our good. We read the bible for us. We pray for us. We go to church for us. It is about what we should do for God to fulfil his blessings on us. We look at passages about faith moving mountains and therefore we teach people that “they should have faith” so that we can get healed or so that we can prosper.

Sin can very easily be summed up as selfishness. If we carry that selfishness into our religion than we have not changed; we are merely sinners in a new context and we use religion as justification for our pursuit for self gratification. We are Christians so that we can get into heaven.

The reality is that the gospel is not about us at all. It is about God and His tireless pursuit of us and His glory being shown by our redemption. From this perspective our squabbles about our salvation being from our works or our faith appear petty and are exposed for the selfish talk they truly are.

9. Religion focuses our attention on the wrong things

Religion focuses our attention on our practises rather than on people or God. We are more concerned with organising our services than on feeding the poor. We spend far more on Church buildings than on fighting poverty. Our concern is about maintaining our religious practises over anything else. I have never heard of a Church that has decided to cancel a Sunday Service so that they can spend the time in the community.

In fact, I would suggest that the western Church currently exists for the sole purpose of facilitating or disseminating religion among its members. A church just isn’t a church unless it holds services, or has an organisational structure, or runs programs. Whilst some churches may be concerned about the community their actions in the community are not what are usually perceived when thinking about a church.

In similar fashion, when thinking about our own personal state we often tick off a check list of spiritual practises. Am I going to church? Yes. Am I reading the bible? Yes. Am I praying regularly? Yes. I must be doing ok as a Christian then. We measure ourselves by the practises people tell us we should do rather than ask “Is my heart in the right place?” or “Am I intimate with God?” or “Am I learning?” Yet again our emphasis is on religious practise instead of where it should be.

8. Religion makes us forget how desperate we are

Religion suggests to us the preposterous idea that by following a formula we can somehow improve ourselves. A typical formula is as follows: “By reading the bible, I increase my spiritual knowledge”. The idea is that by the adherents own efforts in reading the bible they can increase their own knowledge. This suggests that we are not entirely dependant on God.

Instead of living in a relationship with God whereby God says, “Today I am going to teach you something so open your bible” we think “I am going to learn something by reading my bible” as discussed earlier the emphasis is on us. The reality is that our religious practises are completely empty without God. The practise of reading our bible doesn’t teach us, God does.

We think we can become healthy Christians by following a routine of Church going, praying, and bible reading. There is nothing wrong with these things, but they become corrupted when we think that our own work in following these practises is responsible for our own spiritual growth. We forget just how lost and hopeless we are without God and eventually we end up caught in our practices not knowing that God left us to our own devices long ago.

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“It is a universal tendency in the Christian religion, as in many other religions, to give a theological interpretation to institutions which have developed gradually through a period of time for the sake of practice usefulness, and them read that interpretation back into the earliest periods and infancy of these institutions, attaching them to an age when in fact nobody imagined they had such a meaning.” – Richard Hanson 

Ecclesiology is, in essence, the theology of Church. Wikipedia defines it as “that branch of Christian theology that deals with the doctrine pertaining to the Church: its role in salvation, and its origin, its discipline, and its leadership.” Angel fire describes it as follows: “the field of theology which deals with the nature of the church and what it means for the church to be the ‘body of Christ’.”

Protestant theology (particularly soteriology – the study of salvation) changed considerably during the reformation, its ecclesiology did not. This is what a typical Church looks like:

• There is a pastor or clergy or official staff
• There is a laity or general congregation
• There is a church building or special meeting place
• There is a special time each week for a service
• That service primarily involves a sermon from a single preacher and the rest of the congregation listening to him
• Communion may be distributed
• Some songs may be sung
• There may be various announcements for other events the church organisation is doing

All of the above elements were borrowed from Catholicism and, in tern, from Paganism (for a history of traditional Church practices I highly recommend “Pagan Christianity” by Frank Viola at www.ptmin.org). Not one of these elements is present in the New Testament (or at least not as practised today).

The result is a Christianity in which “the ears are the only organs of a Christian” (Luther – something he thought was good). This ecclesiology of Church creates a comfortable Christianity. The common problems with the “Clergy Driven” Church are outlined here.

The plan of the gospel

Church cannot be understood without understanding its place within the rest of theology. In short, humanity sinned and spoiled God’s creation. God has been working on restoring (redeeming) it since then. This is more than salvation. God does not merely want his creation to survive, we wants it to be “very good” again.

This entails change. The good news is not “accept Jesus and survive for eternity” it is “accept Christ and be made into a New Creation”. As Shane Claiborne puts it, “Few people are interested in a religion that has nothing to say to the world and offers only life after death, when what people are really wondering is whether there is life before death.” (The Irresistible Revolution, pg 117) It is not the purpose of Christianity to get people into heaven; its purpose is to enact change in people on the earth now.

If the Old Testament used the plan “create external laws to change people” then the New Testament uses the plan “change people’s hearts to change their actions”. By being filled with the Holy Spirit our character and actions begins to change. We begin to become noticeably different from non-Christians.

This gospel of redemption is further detailed here.

The purpose of Church

In light of this the purpose of Church is to transform Christians and the world. The Church is the “advance guard” of God’s kingdom (a redeemed world). The Church is the bride of Christ (an organism with an intimate relationship with God). Let us investigate these two dimensions:

The Church is the forbearer of God’s kingdom. God’s kingdom is one in which human nature is corrected and people place others before themselves. It is a place in which God is honoured by all of us and in which the stains of sin (placing ourselves first) are washed away. Essentially God’s Kingdom is a community where every member places the other members of that community before themselves. This is the result of the transformation I speak of. The Church is meant to be the bearer of this community.

The Church is the bride of Christ. It is a body. The same love that causes us to place others above ourselves results in radical interdependence between Christians much like can be found in an ant colony. I have often wondered how as a Christian I am worthy of being the “bride of Christ” (a bit weird for a guy) but I now realise it is like wondering how a single ant can build a colony – it doesn’t. The Church is greater than the sum of its parts, great enough even to be the bride of Christ. It is our mission, on God’s behalf, to present that bride perfect before Christ. We must get ourselves and the Church ready for our wedding day.

Radical Christians and Ecclesiology

Radical Christians are the key to carrying out the purpose of Church. God’s kingdom is a kingdom made of Radical Christians. Christ’s bride is perfect only if it contains them. As Radical Christians duplicate they slowly transform the Church and the world, perfecting his bride and showing his kingdom.

The Church does not exist just to get people into heaven. It exists to change people at a deep level. Radical Christians are central to this. They are both the result of these processes and the initiators of it. I have talked about Church being changed by Radical Christians, but in reality the church should be changing people and making them Radical Christians. This catch 22 results in a situation where Christians (the Church) begin to build and change each other.

This post has been heavy and far too rapid. In my final post I will take this theory of Radical Christendom and show how it is practically applicable to our lives. In the mean time I remind you of Stanley Hauerwas’ quote:

“The work of Jesus was not a new set of ideals or principals for reforming or even revolutionizing society, but the establishment of a new community, a people that embodied forgiveness, sharing and self sacrificing love in its rituals and disciple. In that sense, the visible church is not to be the bearer of Christ’s message; but to be the message.”

The Radical Christian: An Overview

The Radical Christian: Being the Gospel

The Radical Christian: Revolutionising Society

The Radical Christian: How they got there

Also Recommend: Seven Suppositions about Church

I was browsing a Christian book store when I came upon the description for the “Faithgirlz Backpack”. It read:

“This cute and colourful girl’s backpack features pretty printed flowers, a front pocket to fit your FAITHGIRLZ BACKPACK BIBLE, adjustable back straps and a handy loop for hanging! 24cm.”

When I read this my heart sank. Is this what western Christianity is all about? Pretty flowers printed on some girl’s bag. Is this what Christ died for? Who’s idea was it that commercialisation would advance the kingdom of God? Unfortunately, this is a typical example of what I see in the Church. Like Judas, we have sold out Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.

Does more of the money you give go towards a church building than the poor? If it does, you may be suffering from Commerciallity. That’s replacing the “Christ” in Christianity with Commercialism. Our Churches are run like businesses; concern isn’t so much for reaching the lost as it is for entertaining the found. Pastors wear designer clothes and drive flashy cars, worship bands play in fancy light shows and on big plasma screens, our sermons give us just a big enough dose of Christianity for the week to keep us coming back. Religion is a commodity; it is part of the entertainment sector.

It is a joke to think that a Sunday Service could ever cater for the spiritual growth of a Church’s congregation. If you think carefully about a service you will find that it is a convenient means of distributing a small amount of spirituality over a large group of people quickly. We give them their dose of worship, we give them their dose of grape juice, and we give them their dose of teaching. They then leave the building and forget everything, live their lives like they did last week, come back to Church next Sunday, pay some tithes, and feel very holy for doing so.

I cannot live my life that way. The western church (organisation) is amongst the shallowest, most sold out institutions I have ever seen. I want to live every minute of every day worshiping, learning, and having communion with other believers. A small dose doesn’t do it for me. I’m interested in glorifying God by changing my life, by reaching the lost, and by loving the unloved. I will not sell out Christ for something easier.

Is it any wonder that you can’t get Christians to evangelise? You can’t get them to give money, you can’t get them to volunteer, you can’t get them to love the unlovable, you can’t get them to stop habitual sin, and you can’t get them to be honest with each other. Christianity is easy, God’s way is hard.

I’m furious at this mutilation of the faith. I’m shattered by Christians chained to the pews they pay their tithes for. I’m disgusted by people buying Faithgirlz backpacks and thinking their daughter is so cute in the name of God. Christianity is not “cute”.

When was the last time you went out of your way to show love to someone who has never felt it before? When was the last time you were desperate enough to glorify God that you revealed your deepest, darkest sin to someone? When was the last time you committed yourself to walking beside a fellow believer in their faith? Think carefully about these things. Is your Christianity active or is it passive? Is it easy or hard?

Don’t sell out Christ for a counterfeit.

The following seven suppositions briefly outline what I believe about Church. There is a lot of (potentially controversial) material in the following points:

1. The Church (which is Christians) exists to present itself as a complete, pure, and humble bride before God.

I propose that the Church (which is merely the plural form of “Christian”) is better understood as an organism (similar to a colony of ants) then an organisation. I believe that this organism is destined to become a perfect community as its members become perfect. I believe that the gospel is one not only of salvation but also of transformation and that this transformation from sinner to saint of individual Christians is central to the purpose of Church as a whole. In essence I believe Church exists to help Christians be transformed, and not merely saved. I believe that the end result of this transformation is a perfect new creation similar to what existed before the fall.

2. Radical Christians are self reproducing.

“Radical Christian” is the term I use to describe a Christian who puts God’s purposes before their own. (That is, they live to serve God and are not just a Christian for the sake of their salvation. In essence, a Radical Christian makes sacrifice a part of their walk with God and is a Christian who is being transformed.) I propose that Radical Christians are self reproducing without the aid of programs in that: 1) A Radical Christian will seek to spread the gospel with or without help from an organisation and 2) A Radical Christian will seek to grow and support other Christians. Not only are Radical Christians at the core of my vision for Church change, they are also the goal of it.

3. Radical Christians seek strong relationships. Strong relationships produce radical Christians.

I believe that Radical Christians will naturally seek out strong relationships. Not all personalities are conductive to truly intimate relationships, but I do believe that Radical Christians will place authenticity with others above acceptance by others. In fact, I propose that this type of relationship is essential for the growth of Radical Christians. These types of relationships encompass the idea of a “shared Christian walk” (growing in faith together).

4. It is my personal responsibility as a priest to build up the people around me.

I propose that people with direct access to God (aka Christians) have a responsibility to be a priest to the people around them. I do not believe that the work of building up Christians in the faith is the work of the clergy. I do believe that every Christian has a personal responsibility to care for, carry the burdens of, and nurture each other. I believe that this can take a variety of different forms that aren’t all (or cannot be) covered by traditional Church programs.

5. Everything I do affects the people that know me.

I propose that my every action has an influence on the people that know me. I believe that as an example of the transforming power of the gospel (which every Christian should be) that my life becomes the good news and not just the bearer of it. I believe I am responsible for what I do or do not do. I suggest that my personal walk with God (personal prayer, reading the bible, etc) will affect the people I know as it builds me in the faith.

6. God will use the ordinary to do the extraordinary through his unique gifts.

I propose that God has given the potential to “make a difference” to every Christian. I suggest that there is no such thing as a “super Christian” (i.e. I suggest that a pastor, for instance, has no more potential then a layman). I also suggest that most traditional Churches prevent Christians from reaching their potential by 1) allowing people to be lost in the congregation, 2) making a distinction between Clergy and Laity, and 3) not building relationships that nurture their members.

7. Love is the only eternal structure.

I propose that love becomes a form of Church structure as it influences the interactions of Christians. I propose that Church buildings, organisations, programs, sermons, and music are temporary, but that this “structure” of love is fundamental to the Church as an organism and will remain forever. Therefore, I believe that love between Christians (and to non-Christians) is far more important then buildings, organisations, programs, sermons, and music. I believe that our focus on programs can interfere with our love for each other. I also believe that love shown by God and Christians is the driving force of the transforming power of the gospel and hence a core part of the purpose of Church.