In my spirit, I heard, “Our words have the power to put The Church to death or bring it back to life.”
As I laid there in the night and thought about those words, I realized that God could be referring to Yhe Church or the church, or to both. Some people don’t see the connection between the two and have them separated in their mind, while others may not understand that there are different ways to understand the church (or Church) at all.
To simplify, many of us grew up with an understanding of a church as the building and congregation where people went on Sunday mornings to shake hands, hug, sing, listen quietly during the sermon, follow along in a hymnal, put money in the offering plate, and then go on with the rest of their day and week, perhaps after some cookies, coffee and conversation with others in the fellowship hall.
Many of us in recent generations have come to know the church as a fairly inconsequential gathering of people, and one that has become more about tradition and obligation than a place that inspires growth and boldness. In short, we have become so accustomed to church being a stagnant experience with a couple of things that bring us warmth that we don’t even realize we’re missing the heat of a burning fire of the church as God intended it. Many stopped gathering together during the initial years of COVID-19 and chose to never go back. After all, technology makes it so easy to listen to sound Biblical teaching without having to make a drive, deal with the crowds, or interact with broken and imperfect people every week. Some fell away altogether and replaced their Sunday morning habit, stating that they don’t have a church near them that has what they are looking for, as if shopping for a church is like shopping for a pair of shoes.
Christians… many of us are speaking death over the church (and therefore The Church) by letting our understanding of what God designed as the purpose of The Church be stunted. Only having a narrow view of the church as a traditional denominational service that takes place in a building weekly over the course of an hour or two, we have essentially put God, and The Church, in a box. The Church is SO MUCH bigger than that, and reading and studying Acts 2 is important to gain understanding about God’s intention. I encourage everyone to read that to broaden understanding.
For those who are already familiar with it and desire a church that is inspired by Acts 2 and who have been deepening their relationship with Jesus over recent years, this message is for you as well. “Our words have the power to put The Church to death or bring it back to life,” Holy Spirit told me. I believe that he is wanting all of us to challenge both our understanding of what a church is and what a church should be by understanding what The Church is and what The Church should be. If we are inspired by a core takeaway of understanding of how things were meant to be from Acts 2, it should be the sense of COMMUNITY.
Going to church is not just a weekly obligation, AND desiring higher standards in The Church doesn’t mean that it isn’t important to meet with others, face to face, in a church weekly. Ask Holy Spirit to reveal to you any areas that your words may be speaking death over the church and therefore The Church. Also remember that the unbelievers who live among us only see what a church is by what they see the body of The Church doing. (I encourage you to read those last two sentences again and sit with them a bit. They hit me hard even as the words were written in front of me.)
To go further, ask Holy Spirit to guide you in your thinking and in your words as you speak about the church and The Church, realizing that the words you speak have the power to bring things back to life. The church and The Church are ripe for revivals, even in regions where congregations are being scattered and believers have gravitated toward studying the Bible on their own.
Holy Spirit has put a strong desire within me to CONNECT and UNIFY believers across denominations, across cultures, and across the globe. This is important for every one of us, because unbelievers who hear believers talking about how there isn’t a church in the area that they like, how church doesn’t fill them anymore, how churches are closing their doors because of low attendance, and on and on are hearing DEATH spoken over The Church as well. When we have given up on the church and are not actively doing our part to grow The Church, then we are speaking death into both.
How can each of us speak life into The Church by bringing life to the church we attend?
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? – 1 John 5:1-5 NIV (Emphasis added)