Rediscover Church

Why the Body of Christ Is Essential

Collin Hansen, Jonathan Leeman

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781433579592
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

"A Christian without a church is a Christian in trouble."

Since a global pandemic abruptly closed places of worship, many Christians have skipped church life, even neglecting virtual services. But this was a trend even before COVID-19. Polarizing issues, including political and racial strife, convinced some people to pull away from the church and one another. Now it's time to recommit to gathering as brothers and sisters in Christ.

In Rediscover Church, Collin Hansen and Jonathan Leeman discuss why church is essential for believers and God's mission. Through biblical references and personal stories, they show readers God's true intention for corporate gathering: to spiritually strengthen members as individuals and the body of Christ. In an age of church-shopping and livestreamed services, rediscover why the future of the church relies on believers gathering regularly as the family of God.

Published in partnership with the Gospel Coalition and 9Marks.

1

What Is a Church?

Jonathan Leeman

Maybe your parents took you to church as a child. Mine did. Some things I liked. Others I didn’t. One thing I loved was playing hide-and-seek with my friends in the church building. It was a sprawling, irregular building, with unexpected hallways, doorways, and stairwells—perfect for hide-and-seek. If you had asked me, “What is a church?” I probably would have pointed to the building.

In high school, the main thing that interested me about church was the Friday night youth events with fun songs, silly skits, and a quick devotion. But if you had asked me whether I had ever considered joining the actual church, I would not have known what to say. Probably I would have waved away the question, not seeing its relevance.

In college and graduate school, I stopped attending church. I still believed the truths of Christianity, at least in my head. Yet I wanted the world more than I wanted Jesus. So I pursued the world with gusto. As best I can tell, I was a nominal Christian—a Christian in name only. I called Jesus my Savior, but he certainly wasn’t my Lord. I “believed,” but I hadn’t “repented and believed,” as Jesus calls us to do. Had you asked me, “What is a church?” I probably would have said, “It’s a bunch of people who want to follow Jesus, which is why I don’t want to be there.” Ironically, the further I had strayed from the church, the better I had understood what it is.

What about you? Have you ever stopped and asked yourself, “What is a church?”

Preaching and People

In August 1996, I completed graduate school and moved to Washington, DC, to find a job. A Christian friend told me about a church in town. Feeling a little guilty about how I was living, but mostly desiring something deeper and more meaningful out of life, I decided to attend. I don’t remember the sermon that first Sunday morning back at church, but I remember returning that night for the Sunday evening service and also the following Wednesday evening for Bible study. The following week, I attended the same: Sunday morning, Sunday night, then Wednesday night. I suddenly transformed from a nonattender to a three-times-a-week attender. Nobody made me. Something was drawing me.

Actually, someone was drawing me—the Holy Spirit—and he was using two things. First, he used Pastor Mark’s preaching. I had never heard anything like it. Mark preached the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter, without embarrassment.

For instance, one Sunday Mark preached one of those difficult-to-stomach chapters in the Old Testament book of Joshua. God commanded Joshua to enter a Canaanite city and kill every man and woman, young and old, as well as all the cattle, sheep, and donkeys. He read the text out loud, looked up at us, and paused.

What is he going to say next, I wondered. That text is outrageous!

Finally, Pastor Mark spoke: “If you are a Christian, you should know why a text like that is in the Bible.”

Wait, what?

At first, I was annoyed by Mark’s challenge. I should know why it’s in the Bible? Why don’t you tell me why it’s in the Bible, Mr. Preacher!

Yet a moment later, Mark’s challenge started making sense. Verses like the one Mark had read remind us that God doesn’t owe us explanations. We owe him explanations. God is not on trial. We are on trial. He is the Creator and Judge. Only he can give life and can take life.

I don’t remember what Pastor Mark said next. The point is, my world had already changed. Reality had been reordered. I was seeing with a slightly different set of eyes—kind of like the new perspectives one acquires with age, but gained in an instant. A conviction had settled in: God is God. I am not.

Good preaching does this kind of work every week. It faithfully reveals the Bible and changes the eyes of your heart, helping you see the world from God’s perspective, not your own. We’ll think more about preaching in chapter 4.

Yet preaching like this wasn’t the only thing the Holy Spirit used to draw me into that church. He also used the people. A man named Dan invited me to join his family every Saturday morning for breakfast and a study of Isaiah. A retired couple named Helen and Hardin invited me for dinner. So did another older couple named Paul and Alice. The church’s embrace was sweet and warm. I had a few non-Christian college friends there in DC with me, yet more and more I wanted to spend time with these new church friends as well, and to invite my college friends to join us.

This congregation, its loves and commitments, offered me a picture of a different kind of life. I had lived to serve myself. They lived to serve God and others. I used my words to show off or to criticize. They used their words to encourage. I talked about God as if he was a chapter of philosophy. They talked about God as if they knew him. I wanted to enjoy the weekend party. They wanted to enjoy Christ.

The congregation also gave me a picture of a different kind of city. There we were in Washington, DC, a city awhirl in conversation about the upcoming elections of November 1996. Members, too, enjoyed such conversations. Some of them even departed to home districts for several weeks of campaigning for their bosses’ congressional or senatorial seats. Yet these folks talked about politics as if it was merely important. The city wanted them to treat it as ultimate. Church members had political interest. The city wanted us to worship politics as an idol.

That meant that inside the church, the political culture felt . . . calmer, not frenzied, more respectful. Our agreement over truly ultimate things, like the source of eternal justice, allowed us to disagree lovingly over important things, like the best political strategies for justice now.

Traditional demographic divides also held less sway. I was a single man in my early twenties. With time, I spent more and more evenings with married couples in their seventies or a widow in her eighties. My first meaningful and deep friendships with minority brothers and sisters would occur in that church.

In short, I learned that the city of God marches to a different drummer even as it participates in some of the civic and cultural marches in the cities of this world.

If you had asked me in those days, “What is a church?” I could not have given you a well-formed answer. But these two ideas of preaching and people—a gospel word and a gospel society—were growing in prominence in my mind. A church—I knew—has something to do with a group of people gathering to be shaped by God’s Word. That way, they begin to live together as a different kind of people, one that’s both in and not of the world.

Why a Right Understanding Matters—Living Like Heaven

Let’s bring it back to you again: What would you say a church is?

When we don’t think about that question carefully, we risk cheating ourselves out of the sweet goodness that God intends for us through his family. After all, your understanding of what the church is will shape your life and your living.

For instance, think about how people today talk about “joining” a church, as if it’s a club. Or “driving down to the church,” as if it’s a building. Or “enjoying church,” as if it’s a show. What assumptions are at work when we talk about church in these ways? Further, how do these assumptions shape how we engage with our churches? I’d say they make it easy to think about our churches for ninety minutes a week and ignore them otherwise.

“But hold on,” we hear from the Scriptures. “A church is actually a gathering and a fellowship of the family of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Spirit.” So if we continue to mindlessly treat our churches as little more than clubs, buildings, or performances, we’ll miss the truckload of support and blessing that God means to park in our driveways.

This book aims to help you rediscover ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Newsletter Signup
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 What Is a Church?
• 2 Who Can Belong to a Church?
• 3 Do We Really Need to Gather?
• 4 Why Are Preaching and Teaching Central?
• 5 Is Joining Actually Necessary?
• 6 Is Church Discipline Really Loving?
• 7 How Do I Love Members Who Are Different?
• 8 How Do We Love Outsiders?
• 9 Who Leads?
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• General Index
• Scripture Index