Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
As leaders we must lead people in becoming expressions of a community of heaven to the communities of the world. This is a community of identity in Christ, a testimony in Christ, and a purpose and destiny in Him to bring life to their world. People in the world are facing increasingly complicated pressures of life and they are looking for a way of escape and place of refuge. God will meet people in that place, but He desires to bring them to a place of becoming an influence of blessing and life to their world.
How do we lead people into the change and purpose that God has for them? If we had a physical city that was built of refugee camps, we would need to change the structure of those camps to become a community of connection. This would mean that we would need to put infrastructure in the community that connects it as a city, inside and out. The construction of the city would need to be built according to a plan of easy ingress, egress, and access within the city. How do people enter the community? How are they sent out from the community? How do they function together in the community?
What does this look like in a community of Christ? We cannot fulfill our destiny in Christ by seeking to build our lives as merely a place of protection, provision, and fellowship. To be a community of destiny we need a structure of destiny. How de we make generation connections? How do we make congregational connections that connect one part of the community with another? How do we make tribal connections that join other parts of Christ’s community that are beyond our own measure of influence? I can’t give you an answer to these questions by some method that will work for us all. All I can do is challenge us all to seek Holy Spirit to become an expression of the family of God for our Father’s name.
I believe that one key is that we know that we have a part in the calling of Christ. We each have a part in the testimony of Christ. We each have a part in the power of Christ to bring life to our world for the glory of His name. This is true for individuals in a congregation of believers and it is also true in the joining of congregations for a greater glory.
Ephesians 1:18 …the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
We don’t have a calling. We have a part in the calling of Christ. We don’t have an inheritance (testimony). We have a part in the inheritance (testimony) of Christ. We don’t have an individual purpose. We each have a part in the purpose of Christ to exercise His power for the glory of God in our world. As leaders we must model this, and we must lead to envision and to see God empower those we lead to find their place in the body of Christ for His kingdom and will to be done.
The body of Christ is not one congregation, but many. The family of God is not one household but many households. The will of God is not done by the young, nor is it done by the old. It is an empowerment of Christ in children, teens, young adults, families, and older men and women alike. We must lead to see these joined as community and life to one another. The strength of one will be strength to another. The strength of one congregation will be strength to another expression of believers in the family of God. There is no junior Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit empowers the community of God to be the family of God for the family purpose in our world. This is not about ministry. It is about the family of God that simply ministers life to the world in many ways.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
