In a famous passage that most Christians will recognize — Revelation 3:20 — John the Revelator quotes the glorified Jesus as saying,
Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him….
For most of my life, that verse was taught to me on a personal level: that Jesus stood at the door of my heart and knocked. From that perspective, it was my choice to respond, to “let Jesus into my heart” as the expression goes. It was a call to conversion, to salvation.
Of late, however, I’ve thought more of Scripture as being aimed at communities rather than individuals — that was one of the central ideas of A Church More Like Christ, after all — and in fact that section of Revelation was addressed to “the angel of the church in Laodicea.”
So, do you think your church — either the leaders or members — has ever read that passage as
Behold, I stand at the door of your church and knock….
?
And if they were to read it that way, how quick would they be to open the door?
I believe that a church that opens its door to the Lord, that lets him inside in a real and authentic way, has the potential (to paraphrase the back cover copy of my book) to be a force for good, a light in the darkness, and an outpost of God’s kingdom in this world. It has the potential to be a place where the wounded find comfort and healing, the broken find repair and restoration, and the vulnerable find help and hope.
I could be wrong, but that, I think, is what every Christian church should be.
___
For other musings and oddball ideas,
– Take a look at A Church More Like Christ, awarded a Silver medal by the Military Writers Society of America
– Or my other MWSA Silver medalist, Elements of War
– Or my Amazon Page, my Bandcamp Page, or just my website
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I agree with that in the brick-and-mortar sense, but knowing that the church is the body of Christ and that, as individuals, we are the temple. Many Christians fail to walk it as intended. This is why many churches have pew warmers and not gift users. If we take a deeper look at how the current church structure is modeled (it began to change in the middle of the third century), it differs drastically from what Christ intended. Not that God doesn’t anoint and use individuals to a calling of service, but the church model today creates a house full of spectators, never stepping out into their callings and giftings. America definitely needs a revival!