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Vision
Version 3, 1st February 2011,
- God has spoken in the last year in many ways, but perhaps the most surprising way has been that he has expanded our understanding of baptism and communion. He has helped us see how these simple actions that Jesus commanded, speak so directly of what he is doing in his church in the 21st Century. This is described in the book Living Together in the Presence of God and summarised below:
- * In the Christian life we move from being baptised once to receiving communion repeatedly. Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding at Cana seems to have a connection with this: he changed water into wine, i.e. something applied on the outside which cleanses to something taken internally to sustain and revive. When we come to faith, God places us in Christ (baptism), and then allows us to receive more and more of Christ in us (communion).
- * In the physical ‘we are what we eat’ – our bodies are made up of what we have eaten and drunk over the years. When Jesus said “This is my body” and “This is my blood”, and commanded us to eat and drink the bread and the wine, he was, at least in part, speaking about our spiritual transformation into his likeness, through his presence in us. C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity:
- …the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.
- * Both baptism and communion symbolise Jesus’ burial. Paul draws an explicit picture in Romans 6:3-4 – he tells us that we are identified with Jesus in his burial and resurrection by our baptism so we may live a new life. In communion, we act out Jesus’ burial, by burying him in us. We become the tomb so that we can be the place of resurrection, to receive his risen life. The body and blood that were separated on the cross are re-united in us (not on the communion table), so he can live his risen life, in and through us.
- * Communion also speaks in the bread and wine of the two great gifts that Jesus gives us: revelation and life. In last year’s MAP we showed, through a prophetic vision and multiple Bible verses, that bread is a powerful symbol of direct revelation from God. Wine is alive, and is said by Jesus to represent his blood. In the Old Testament, we read ‘…the life of a creature is in the blood’ (Leviticus 17:11). Therefore, in receiving the wine of communion, we are asking for the life of Jesus to be in us. Communion represents the two things we just cannot do without: the revealed word of God and the life of Jesus.
- * Communion is undoubtedly multi-faceted, but one aspect seems to be coming to the fore. That is, communion is an acted-out prayer that Jesus may live in us so that we can re-present him in the world.
Please note that we are not advocating any kind of sacramentalism. The actions and the elements of baptism and communion are just a means of expressing our faith, and it’s faith that moves mountains.
- The following list is unchanged from last year. Our experience over the last four years has led us to the unshakeable conclusion that God never wants us to work by formulas, no matter how well they have worked in other times and other places. He is infinitely creative, and is always eager to give us new ways to serve him and the world. There are, however, some principles that we have discovered (and have checked carefully in the Bible):
God’s desire for us is:
- * To have an intimate, loving relationship with him, that includes knowing him as Father and as Husband, but goes beyond any human-human experience to knowing Jesus living within us, transforming us into his likeness.
- * To depend on continuous revelation from him, i.e. to live by faith that he will always guide us, reassure us, teach us, etc., and we never need to substitute human planning for revelation.
- * To know that true revelation will always bear testing by the Bible, the leadership and the body of the church.
- * Not to constrain how or when he speaks to us, not to limit what he asks us to do and not to have any ‘sacred cows’ that we are not prepared to scrap.
- * Never to treat him like a machine, i.e. we must never assume because he has worked in a particular way in the past that he will repeat himself, even if the circumstances appear identical.
- * To realize that worship is to be totally ‘vertical’, i.e. directed to him and by him.
- * To depend on him for all our needs.
- * To focus on the ‘things of God’ and not the ‘things of men’ (Matthew 16:23).
- * To allow him to reveal the timescale and methods of change in our life together as the body of Christ.
In this last year we have experience a heightened emphasis on the life of Christ in us. Therefore we can add another principle to the list above:
- * Because Christ is living in us, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to re-present him to the world, Therefore we need to be:
- - Without guile, like Nathanael (John 1:47).
- - In continual communion with the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.
- - Expecting to see the Holy Spirit operate in signs and wonders through us.
This means that, in sharing the Good News, we must never use the ‘weapons of the world’ (2 Corinthians 10:4). In following the examples of Jesus and the Apostles, we cannot employ any kind of marketing, promotion, advertising, etc. We cannot put on events or programmes that draw people to us so that we can evangelize them. We must do nothing designed to make an impression on anyone. We must have pure motivations if we are to be used by God. Anything I do for my neighbour must be because I love him and I want him to have a direct encounter with God. This is the pattern in the Gospels and Acts – a direct revelation of God’s love followed by a response of faith. For example, after Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding in Cana:
This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him. (John 2:11)
- As we are now his body, he wants to do the same thing through us. Why should we deny him this, by substituting our own methods of evangelism (no matter how ‘well they have worked’ in the past)?
- The life of Holy Trinity Church is rich and varied. Please see the Welcome Booklet and the Calendar for descriptions of most of what is going on.
- We believe that God is not calling us to make any substantial structural changes to our patterns of worship, or to start any new initiatives. We have been encouraged by a number of undeniable and significant healings, some of which have occurred in church and others in church small groups; and we are living in hope that this is the way God is calling us to reach out. Our major need is to encourage all the members of the congregation to be ready, willing and able to be the means whereby the people that they come in contact with, can have a direct encounter with God and receive something of the life of Jesus. It seems that this is possible only if we deliberately avoid all conventional methods of evangelism.
If we are to re-present Jesus to the world then we have no alternative to allowing him to work in and through us, so that we can be his likeness as he is the likeness of God (2 Corinthians 4:4).
Our greatest responsibility to God and/or people is not to pursue or provide more eloquent displays of the Gospel, or even miracles. Neither is it merely to speak truth in the sense of preaching or a one-on-one witness of the Gospel. Our great responsibility is to know God and make God known. Learning how to do this effectively should capture our hearts and attention for a lifetime. For at least 20 years, a driving force within me has been the conviction that I owe people an encounter with God. I owe them more than just a message filled with truth. Whatever I do for people must contain the opportunity for a divine encounter. (Release the Power of Jesus, Bill Johnson, (2009), Chapter 9)
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