Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Church
A Community Designed to
Transform the World
Session 11
worship and prayer
Divide students into pairs of two and have them share their experiences with
one another. Do not make comments until all students’ answers have been
shared.
For your homework I also asked you to read the article “e Purpose of
the Church”, answer the reflection questions in the article, and to come
prepared to share your findings with the group.
How did you answer these questions? (Project the first set of questions on
PowerPoint and facilitate a dialog with them as they seek to answer the
questions).
Write the following list of pictures of the church on your white board or project a
PowerPoint slide:
Ask each participant to select two words, which most represent church to
them. Make a count of which words received most votes and ask then ask
participants these questions:
(Example: ey might pick the word clinic. In that case, they may regard their
society, and perhaps the church members, as sick. e gospel is healing medicine.
Are church members the patients or the healers? Is the minister the only healer?
ey can study the other words from the list which appeal to them.)
Make sure that at the end of the exercise all eight purposes of the church are
listed on the whiteboard:
1. Praise & Worship – Love the Lord with all your heart
2. Prayer & Intercession – Exercise your dominion for God’s will to be
done on earth
3. Teaching & Equipping – And teach them to obey everything that I
have commanded you
4. Reconciliation & Community – You are my body
5. Incarnation & Presence – Be my hands and feet
6. Evangelism & Mission – Go and make disciples
7. Service & Social Action – Love your neighbor as yourself
8. Justice & Advocacy – Seek justice, defend the cause of the weak
In the following Scripture Study, we’ll look more in depth at each of these
eight purposes. Each group should answer the following questions:
Divide students into eight groups. If the class is small, have each student
represent one group, or divide participants into four groups, each of which
should study two purposes. Have each group then read their assigned scripture
verses and answer the aforementioned questions. ey should also read the
paragraph describing the purpose they studied in the article “A Biblical Balance
– Purpose-Driven Churches”.
Once they’re done, they should prepare a short dramatization or paint a picture
that must demonstrate the purpose they were studying. Walk around and listen
to groups. Have groups select a representative to report their findings to the
entire class and then have the entire group do the dramatization or explain the
picture they painted.
Group 1 - Purpose 1: Praise & Worship – Love the Lord with all your heart
Worship means, literally, acknowledging the worth of something or
someone. It means recognizing and saying that someone or something is
worthy of praise. It means celebrating the worth of someone or something
far superior to oneself.3 It is very interesting to note in these passages that
the purpose of God’s people was to worship him and lead others into his
worship – a worship that praised his deeds and proclaimed his goodness.
e worshipers worship was to witness to God’s glory (Ps. 57:9), and
should involve their entire lives. In worship and through their
participation in a worshiping community they were to be spiritually
transformed… Peter in fact establishes worship as one of the church’s
primary purposes (1 Peter 2:4-5). “As you come to him, the living stone –
rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – you also are
built into a spiritual house…” For what purpose? “To be a holy
priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ.” In Verse 9 he is even more insistent. “You are a chosen people, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God….” Again, for
what purpose? “at you may declare the praises of him who called you
out of darkness into his wonderful light.” In worship, the worshiper turns
his or her thoughts from the darkness of this world – the suffering,
oppression, frustration, anger, injustice etc. – to the source of all Good –
God. e worship service of the assembled congregation is to be an
environment in which people are given permission to come near to,
interact with, show themselves vulnerable and get to know God. A place
and time, in which they allow God to serve and change their perceptions
of him, of the world, as well as them. A place and time, in which they can
make themselves known to him (including their praise, grief, joy, sins,
etc…). Worship is not meant to be just a mystical experience without
consequences on life. In Romans 12:1-2 Paul pleads with us not to remain
conformers, but to become transformers. As we give our body, mind and
will to God in true worship, our character and personalities are shaped, our
relationships transformed and community formed. is transformation
also has societal effects. In our encounter with God we enter into a
genuine, wholehearted and infectious love-relationship and accordingly
cannot but witness and serve. In other words: our evangelism, our service,
and our social transformation efforts are driven by our worship of the
loving, merciful and just God.
Group 2 - Purpose 2: Prayer & Intercession – Pray for God’s will to be done
on earth as it is in heaven
Group 8 - Purpose 8: Justice & Advocacy – Seek justice, defend the cause of
the oppressed
plenary dialogue
xx
minutes (Does something go here?)
5
minutes
total time:
xx minutes
personal notes
It is crucial to understand that you become like what you worship! When you gaze in
awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something
of the character of the object of your worship. ose who worship money become,
eventually, human calculating machines. ose who worship sex become obsessed with
their own attractiveness or prowess. ose who worship power become more and more
ruthless. Because we were made in God’s image, worship of God makes us more truly
human. When you gaze in love and gratitude at the God in whose image you were made,
you do indeed grow. You discover more of what it means to be fully alive. Conversely,
when you give that same total worship to anything or anyone else, you shrink as a human
being. It doesn’t, of course, feel like that at the time. When you worship part of the
creation as though it were the Creator himself – in other words, when you worship an
idol – you may feel a brief ‘high’. But, like a hallucinatory drug, you are less of a human
being than you were to begin with. at is the price of idolatry. (N.T. Wright, Simply
Christian, 148)
4 Myles Munroe, Understanding the Purpose and Power of Prayer, 15-16
5 Myles Munroe, Understanding the Purpose and Power of Prayer, 16
6 Bob Moffit, If Jesus Were Mayor, 70
7 Myles Munroe, Understanding the Purpose and Power of Prayer, 16
8 Myles Munroe, Understanding the Purpose and Power of Prayer, 41
It is interesting to note that in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before His arrest, Jesus
asked His disciples to pray so that they might have the power to withstand opposition.
ey did not pray; therefore, they fled before the threat of persecution. Before His
ascension, Jesus asked them again to pray; they did, and were filled with the Holy Spirit
and with power to serve, to suffer and to turn the world upsidedown (reform) with their
prophetic preaching.
9 Praying is trusting God. e Bible says that faith is what ultimately overcomes the
world (1 John 5:5). Faith is power because it produces hope and generates action in a
stagnant society. Faith is power because it produces patience and perseverance. Faith is
power because it gives staying ability in the midst of opposition - the power to stand, to
serve, to fight, to suffer, to die and to overcome. Most supremely, trusting or praying
releases power because our dependence on God moves Him to act.
10 Bob Linthicum, City of God City of Satan, 155
11 Bob Linthicum, City of God City of Satan, 189
In the New Testament, all references to these positions, whether in a local church or in
the universal church, are functional references – that is, people performing particular
tasks. Unfortunately, however, over the centuries the church has turned these functions
into offices that a person often occupies for life.
12 ey are to help believers not only to read and hear the Word of God, but to allow the
Bible to read their lives and circumstances and encourage change where needed.
13 Robert Linthicum, Transforming Power, 125
14 based on a quote by Orlando Costas
ey are persons chosen by God and recognized by the church as having the
responsibility to equip God’s people in fulfilling the mandate Christ has given to the
entire church. (based on a quote by Stanley Grenz)
15 Robert Linthicum, City of God City of Satan, 189
16 We must keep in mind that the people of the church are not those to be primarily
ministered unto.
17 Robert Linthicum, City of God City of Satan, 190
in the Old Testament and the people of Jesus – Jew and Gentile – in the New Testament.
ose who are united with Christ in the Holy Spirit are also united with one another –
whether we wish to be or not – as the body and bride of Christ. ( Joel Scandrett, Holy to
the Core, 40, published in Christianity Today, May 2007)
24 Rick Warren, e Purpose-Driven Church, 105-106
25 ey were to call people into a distinct community with its own set of values marked
ever made and the notion of the priesthood of all believers was broadly affirmed. Since
the Spirit has gifted each and every one believer, we are all called to participate in the
work and life of the church and give of ourselves to the advancement of the kingdom.
Indeed, the church can’t fulfill its mission and purpose unless everyone in the
congregation uses their gifts for ministry. at’s why a purpose-driven church equips its
members to minister in teams that reflect a Spirit of unity in diversity. It is within this
context that the different “ministries” within the church are to grow up. From the very
earliest evidence we have, in the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of Paul, the church
has recognized different callings within its common life. God has given different gifts to
different people so that they may use them to build up the community and advance its
mission in the world. (N.T. Wright, Simply Christian, 211)
27 We talk a lot about Christianity and Christians, but in Jesus’ day, there was no such
thing as a Christian, and Christianity, as we know it, didn’t exist yet. At that point, there
were disciples – people who followed Jesus – and there was a way of living as disciples.
Later, they got their nickname ‘Christian’, which just means ‘little Christ’ or ‘mini-
messiah’, and their way of living became known as ‘Christianity’, which might better be
called a messianic way of living. (Brian McLaren, e Story We Find Ourselves In, 125)
28 Pagan Romans and Greeks, for example, loved only those in their family and social
commandment of reconciliation and doesn’t bridge gaps between rich and poor, “Jew and
Greek”, man and woman, falls short of God’s vision for his Church.
30 Robert Linthicum, City of God City of Satan, 159
31 Robert Linthicum, City of God City of Satan, 171
Like Jesus, our evangelistic task must simultaneously challenge the social and spiritual
structures as well as the persons which are opposed to the reign of God. In the same
manner that we vigorously announce the good news of hope, we must equally denounce
all sins, injustices, and evil works of powers and principalities. e Church as Christ’s
body is meant to be both an agent of salvation and an agent of His justice. e loss of this
balanced perspective has robbed the Church of her dynamism to transform society.
Protestantism no longer protests against evil, because it sees itself merely as a channel of
God’s salvation and not of God’s justice. What does it mean for Jesus to be the Ruler of
the kings of the earth if He does not judge them? What good is it if His Spirit does not
empower those whom he fills to pronounce prophetic judgment? After His resurrection
Jesus said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me’ (Matt. 28:18). Paul
said that the Head of the Church is already seated on the throne above all powers,
principalities and rulers of this world (Eph. 1:20-3). is means that Christ’s Body has to
carry out His instructions and orders. e Church is His mouthpiece. And to be a
prophet means to be the mouthpiece of God (Exod. 4:14-16). is loss of perspective
which separates prophecy from evangelism, which preaches salvation without
proclaiming repentance and justice, reduces the Church to a rudderless boat floating at
the mercy of social currents some of which are ghastly in their cruelty and injustice. Some
Church leaders, for example, are enthusiastic to perform marriages for homosexuals, but
too timid to oppose the annual murder of sixty million babies through abortion. Today
we seek the patronage of the Pharaoh in order to preach to the enslaved people. We do
not dare to witness to Pharaoh himself. But the tragedy is that when we cease to be the
voice for justice, we also become ineffective as channels of salvation: When we are not
breaking the yoke of oppression, we have no ‘good news for the poor’ either. e poor
masses consider us irrelevant and our critics legitimately dismiss us as giving ‘opium’, and
not spreading the Good News. (Vishal Mangalwadi, Truth and Social Reform, 93-94)
34 Walter Wink, e Powers at Be, 200
Indeed, the passion that drove the early Christians to evangelistic zeal was not fueled just
by the desire to increase church membership or to usher people safely into a
compensatory heaven after death. eir passion was fired above all by the hope in a better
world that had begun with Jesus’ coming; a hope that the reign of evil had been dealt a
deadly blow. is freed them to live and become whole and challenge those structures
that disempowered them. Being thus freed and healed determined them to set others free
and bring healing to them. (Ibid, 200)
35 e Harvest Foundation, Leadership Development Training Program Level 1, ird
Printing, 3-4
36 e Harvest Foundation, Leadership Development Training Program Level 1, ird
do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).
38 Gary A. Haugen, Good News About Injustice, 174-175
39 Bob Moffit, If Jesus Were Mayor, 126
40 Stephen Charles Mott, Biblical Faith and Social Change, 34
41 Darrow Miller & Bob Moffitt, On Earth as it is in Heaven, 184-185
of the oppressed. When the strong abuse their power to take from those who are weaker,
the sovereign God of the universe is watching, suffering with the oppressed and
condemning the sin of the oppressors. Justice has to do with the exercise of power. To say
that God is a God of justice is to say that he is a God who cares about the right exercise
of power or authority. God is the ultimate power and authority in the universe, so justice
occurs when power and authority is exercised in conformity with his standards. So justice
occurs on earth when power and authority between people is exercised in conformity
with God’s standards of moral excellence. To put it differently, to say that God is a God
of justice is one way of saying that he is concerned about whether those who have power
or authority over others are exercising it in accordance with his standards. When power is
exercised in a way that violates those standards we call it injustice. (Gary A. Haugen,
Good News About Injustice, 71-72, 79)
47 Gary A. Haugen, Good News About Injustice, 86
48 Gary A. Haugen, Good News About Injustice, 96
Indeed, God’s disposition toward the poor and oppressed is perhaps one of the most
important themes in Scripture.
49 Gary A. Haugen, Good News About Injustice, 96-97
50 Robert Linthicum, City of God City of Satan, ?
And that’s why we will, through our acts of compassionate advocacy, give witness to our
belief that what the Bible says about God is true, or not. (Gary A. Haugen, Good News
About Injustice, 83)
51 Gary A. Haugen, Good News About Injustice, 97
52 Vishal Mangalwadi, Truth and Social Reform, 93-94
As churches we may have tried to make people ‘nice’ – quiet citizens of their earthly
kingdoms and energetic consumers in their earthly economies – but we didn’t fire them
up and inspire them to invest and sacrifice their time, intelligence, money, and energy in
the revolutionary cause of the kingdom of God. No, too often, Karl Marx was right: we
used religion as a drug so we could tolerate the abysmal conditions of a world that is not
the kingdom of God. Religion became our tranquilizer so we wouldn’t be so upset about
injustice. Our religiosity thus aided and abetted people in power who wanted nothing
more than to conserve and preserve the unjust status quo that was so profitable and
comfortable for them. (Brian McLaren, e Secret Message of Jesus, 84-85)
53 Alfonso Wieland, In Love With His Justice, ?
54 quoted in Graham Gordon, What If You Got Involved?, 37