We The Body Series Pt. IV: The Body
If you love church resources and pie charts, this one is for you!
“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.…He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
Ephesians 4:11-16
(my favorite parts cherry-picked version)
What if the “job” of a pastor was never meant to be carried alone? What if the church’s need to have a teacher, a leader, a visionary, an evangelist, and a shepherd was never intended to be met by one man or even a small group of men? What if the needs and goals of the church were always meant to be shared amongst and throughout the entirety of the church? And what if a church— it’s mission, values, direction, and purpose— was meant to be formed and founded on the unique make-up, personalities, giftings, and callings of each of the individuals that make up that church rather than the unique make-up, personality, giftings, and calling of the single man or woman that’s “in charge?”
Well then, you’d end up with a church kinda like ours. You’d also end up with a whole lot of group quiz taking, arguments over said quiz taking and their subsequent results, and also some aesthetically pleasing pie charts.
Over the last several weeks, our church has been discovering our “spiritual identities” together through engaging with three different spiritual tools. I roughly defined these spiritual identities as encompassing three main things: