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God before church

I’ve been chewing on a thought lately… We must get our theology right in order to get our ecclesiology right. OK, let’s break it down… Theology = what I believe about God Ecclesiology = what I believe about the church The bottom line here is that if I’m not thinking right about God then I…

I’ve been chewing on a thought lately… We must get our theology right in order to get our ecclesiology right.

OK, let’s break it down…

  • Theology = what I believe about God
  • Ecclesiology = what I believe about the church

The bottom line here is that if I’m not thinking right about God then I won’t think right about the church… His body.

In other words, what I believe about God will determine how I “do” church.

This is HUGE for me as I begin this journey as a church planter! I can know all the how-to’s, etc. but the bottom line is that I must build all of these off of a solid theology!

So how about you… what do you believe about God and how does that shape what you believe about and expect from church?

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Responses to “God before church”

  1. Rindy

    I am so glad we chatted about this the other day!! Yesterday when visiting a friend, the conversation turned to churches, God, and this very topic! She believes in ‘a god’ but has been so turned off by so many who have all their emphasis on ‘religion’. They have prioritized all the ‘must do’s’ and ‘can’t do’s’ that as they are pushing their church and religion, they are pushing away all the people who are searching, who aren’t in their circle, or who ‘don’t measure up’. This is not God, this is not Jesus, this is putting the ecclesiology way before the theology.

    Jesus meets people where they are, wherever that may be. He changes lives. We can’t limit how he does that by placing ‘rules’ on how it’s done. If it is Biblically ok and reflects what he really meant and did, we should be doing all we can to reach others. A ‘church’ is not the authority, the Bible and God are.

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  2. Bill Reichart

    Great question Paul.

    I believe a couple of things about God (my theology) that affects the way I see the church.

    God is love, he loves the church, Christ loves the church that he gave himself for her Eph 5:25

    God grace is elective. Honestly Paul, laying all my cards out on the table, I come from a Calvinist theological perspective. My theology highlights His irrestible grace. So I read Eph 1:4-5, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will–” The church has always been part of God’s plan.

    As theologian Simon Chan says in his book, Liturgical Theology, which I am in the middle of, “we must always remember that the church as the people of God is not an afterthought or a means to an end, but the end itself.”

    My theology puts a high value on the church. The church isn’t merely defined by it’s mere function, what it does, but rather, as Chan so eloquently puts, “A better way to view the Bible’s narrative is to see creation as forming the backdrop for God’s elective grace and covenant relationship.” That is,”God created the world in order to enter into a covenanted relationship with his people, beginning with Abraham and culminating in Jesus Christ and the church.”

    In Eph 2:19-20, 1 Cor. 3:16,17 Christ is building up His people into the church, where He dwells with them and Christ is the chief cornerstone. Therefore ultimately I see that church is not merely my work, but rather a gift of God, something that comes from Him and into which he calls me to.

    My theology informs me that Christ dwells with His people, I see therefore his abiding presence. “Christ is present in his church through his Word and sacrament, and the church is, in its essence, nothing other than the presence of Christ.” (theologian Anders Nygren) This effects my view of preaching and how I administer the Lord’s Supper, also a motivating reason why at Big Creek we celebrate the Lord’s supper weekly.

    Since it is Christ’s church, and He is present with His people and He is the chief cornerstone, I have hope in the church. I know that the church will accomplish all that God has for it to accomplish.

    Yes, of course, in the church I see has a lot of divisiveness, backbiting, petty squabbling and hypocrisy. The church is a mess. But my theology allows me to see the church as a Beautiful Mess!

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