I was thinking earlier today about all the many, many churches that you can find on the street corners of our cities. Many of them have been there for years.
I started thinking about one church that I had heard about which recently celebrated their 100+ year anniversary. At the time, I thought 'wow, they've been around a long time' and didn't give it too much more thought.
But today, I started thinking, why would a 'church' boast about how long it's been in existence?
It seems that the Father was always on the move, in both the Old and New testaments. It appears that His notion of progress for His people was to initiate a project but after His purposes were fulfilled, He moved the individuals on, reorganized various people into different groupings and then began a new project for a season, after which he moved individuals on, reorganized various people into different groupings....
This pride we take in an assembly's (not 'church', WE as people are the church) longevity, I believe, is not good.
It speaks, at the least, to a lack of discerning the Father's will and at the worst to a rebellious and \hard heart.
The fluid, amoebic nature of the Body of Christ prevents it from being nailed down, boxed in, institutionalized. Each member must be free to move about this life as the Spirit gives expression - just like the Spirit Himself, This makes establishing some set-in-stone weekly, monthly, yearly programming difficult if not downright impossible.
For example, if one individual is being used of the Lord - during one season in their life- to tend to an elderly aunt's needs, however and whenever those needs arise; if another individual is led to walk among the homeless and serve them; if a family is led to take to the road and serve those the Lord brings across their path, If - on and on and on. How will these individuals (or think about even an assembly full of these type of Spirit led individuals) be able to maintain or even attend some type of set programming week in and week out?
Being tied to a weekly,monthly,yearly 'program' without allowing each individual/family the freedom to be used in this world the way the Father desires will produce a calcified, dead, powerless 'church' - isn't that what we are seeing? We make up for true 'life in Christ' by filling out ossified 'churches' with lots of activity giving the appearance of life ..."but denying the power thereof'. We become the tree Jesus cursed that had leaves but no fruit.
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