It sure would simplify the church’s mission, if all it was supposed to do is point people to Jesus.

But isn’t that what the pharisees did: provided an answer to everyone’s questions and desires through their traditions and rules so that they didn’t need a messiah? Pre-reformation scholasticism seemed to have fallen into the same error. Late twentieth century liberalism replaced faith with psychology. Now the ten-step-principle pragmatists have taken the lead.

The church’s “yes” must be Jesus. Everything the church does (word, sacrament, worship, service, etc.) needs to point to that same answer. The risk of offering something else is always there. It can happen to a mega church as well as a liturgical or traditional church.

I agree with iMonk whole-heartedly: all of the epistemological/existential/ontological questions that I could ever come up with are answered only in the person of Jesus Christ – particularly in the seven “I AM” statements found in the Gospel of John.

But in this passage in Ephesians, the one who says, “Yes” to the church is Jesus! She is His bride! That bride is not the institutional church, but the “one, holy cat-holic (meaning of-the-whole in latin), apostolic church: all believers throughout all ages in all parts of the world, including my baptist, catholic, and pentecostal friends and neighbors.

I don’t know how to wrap my head around this. Why? God doesn’t need us, but he pursues us like his betrothed.

What makes this more difficult to comprehend is the fact that His Bride includes me, but is not exclusively me. So, back to the original statement which may have inspired this thread, individual, “just me and Jesus” pietism is a poor representation of the faith. Recalling God’s statement in the garden regarding Adam ,”It is not good for man to be alone”. As Bonhoeffer stated in “Life Together”, there are times and circumstances when believers will be isolated from other believers, and unfortunately for the Episcopal bishop, one thing which will cause isolation and separation is heretical teaching; not good news for the mess she has been asked to preside over. But I think she gets it partially right: it is not good for Christians to be alone. Christianity is not a personal, designer religion of my own choosing that I practice in a vacuum. I cannot love unless I am in a committed, loving relationship with other believers. If I cannot love, then I am not a Christian. But commitment doesn’t necessarily equal membership in an organized church institution.

How many people just go to a church without asking God which one to go to? Or IF they should take a new job, etc…

He still speaks.

Today I got my paycheck in the mail. I can distinguish between my employer and the U.S. Post Office.

My employer is PRIMARILY responsible for my paycheck, the USPO is SECONDARILY responsible it.

The answer to some of these questions may be Jesus – primarily, the church – secondarily. The answer to some of course is Jesus – yes, the church – no.

Excellent post.

I’ve been a part of a congregation (for purposes of this thread, distinct from, yet part of The Church, or Body of Christ at large) since infant baptism. Congregation took on new meaning at the age of 14 when my parents left the Roman Catholicism, and joined a cult (as would be defined by Orthodoxy anyway) that believed in Jesus (don’t even get me started on all that, suffice it to say, when you’re in a cult, rarely can you acknowledge it), but then it was a positive experience in those mid-teen years, and I actually began to study the Bible seriously, took congregation attendance seriously, and grew as a believer.

Then in the mid-nineties our denomination began to see the Old Covenant through a New Covenant lense, and was accepted into the wider grace-based Orthodox community to become, essentially, a conservative evangelical denomination. Church historians, such as Ruth Tucker, and others wrote about our “Acts like” transformation in Christianity Today, etc, The Worldwide Church of God.

Now, more recently, our theology has moved from a more traditional Western based understanding, typical to many main stream Protestant churches today, to Trinitarian theology. Sometimes referred to as Incarnational, Adoption, or Christ-Centered. We no longer view humanity as being separate from God, and thereby must do/believe something to, in essence change Gods’ mind toward us so He will accept us. But, as Paul told the Ephesians, humanity was chosen from the beginning to be adopted into His family. Jesus Incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension making that possible. In Corinthians, Paul tells us, when He died, we died, when He rose, we rose, and are seated in Heaven with Jesus. All humanity, now included in Jesus, ontologically. The problem being, not that humanity is now separate from God, but humanity simply doesn’t know who they are, blinded as it were, and therefore can’t experience the freedom of salvation. So, Trinitarian theology acknowledges a universal reconciliation (distinct from Universalism) of all mankind through Jesus, and a personal reconcilation when they come to belief and experience who they are in Jesus.

Needless to say, that’s been tough for some, including our senior pastor to fully embrace. He has chosen not to teach dogmatically what our denomination now holds as true, because he can’t reconcile a number of scriptures through that lense. Our family, on the other hand fully embraces it, and despite the past couple years of trying to work with our pastor to do the same, we’ve decided it’s no longer spiritually healthy to continue.

We fully support our denomination, but have made the choice to no longer support our local congregation and attend church at home, supported by denominational web resources, etc. Because I’ve held to many of the views expressed in this post, I’ve been struggling with the congregational component. Does our family, the five of us, sitting around our kitchen table with a vision that “church” should be a party, not unlike the wedding supper, whereby we worship God, discuss history and where the western church got off track through teachings from Augustine, Plato, dualism, deism, etc., consitute “church?” When we listen to a sermon about a loving Father who embraces, and loves us, has forgiven us fully through His Son, at home, does that constitute church?

When my younger son concludes, we learned that God is way “cooler” than He’s made out to be, does that constitute church? In that respect, I would say, Jesus, Yes, Church, Yes.

But if it doesn’t, because we’re not with fellow believers, in a larger setting, as some in our congregation will do doubt conclude when we no longer attend (after 10 years) in the next couple weeks as we’ve unwound ourselves from scheduled commitments, then I would have to say, Jesus, Yes, Church, No.

I’ve been going back and forth on this, this past week because of all my cultural conditioning, and feel like I was led to this site, to confirm my beliefs. I’m a strong Church Yes, believer, having been trained as a pastor, degreed in Theology, but employed as a banker…but unfortunately find myself in the position of having to say, Church No (as we traditionally would define it here in the US), and Church Yes…at home, just the five of us…learning that Yes, God is way cooler, than most make him out to be.

Regards my friends, especially to the Internetmonk this cathartic experience.