Jesus. Mission. Church.
We all know these are the priorities. What we don’t understand is this isn’t just a random list of priorities. It’s our priorities in their order of importance.
Jesus- Jesus is Lord. He is God’s final word to mankind about what He is like. He holds everything together by the word of His power. And while the worship of Jesus is central to Christianity, He often can quickly become a lesser priority. The goal is to keep encountering and obeying Him, day after day until days turn to weeks turn to months turn to years. He is the priority.
Mission- The mission described here is the one that Jesus Himself came with–to bring the whole world under His leadership and repair the broken relationship between God and man. Jesus was a man on the move. He constantly was moving from one place to another, declaring the Kingdom of God, casting out demons, healing the sick, and performing signs that invited lost humanity into the newly near Kingdom. But He didn’t turn the crowds into mega-churches. He kept moving. And after the resurrection, His command was still to go and declare the same Gospel He had preached. Acts and the New Testament are the echos of Jesus’ command to continue on in His mission.
Church- Church is the gathering of believers under the leadership of Jesus and in relationship to each other. Jesus said He would build His church and that even the gates of hell would not be able to prevail against it. Nothing could stop it. And so each church that is built by Jesus becomes another weapon in His war against the darkness oppressing humanity.
But great damage happens when we confuse these three priorities:
A church where Jesus isn’t first is quickly in danger of losing it’s place of ministry (Revelation 2:4-5). No one says that Jesus is less important than mission or church. We just continue to show more concern for mission or church than we do for connecting with Christ. The result is usually burnout that ends in moral failure.
Mission comes before church. That’s a controversial statement, but it’s true. Church is the fruit of mission. Emil Brunner said “The church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning.” When Jesus ascended into Heaven, He did not leave a church. He left a mission and that mission was accomplished through the establishment of churches. Every time the church began to get comfortable, Jesus would scatter the church so mission could continue (see Acts 8:4, for example). Mission was the next priority.
And church. Church is incredibly important. Necessary. But when it becomes the object of our affection it becomes an idol. So many of us are quick to put church before mission and because of that mission never gets accomplished. Church must happen. But it happens best as a form of communitas that is forged in response to the mission of Jesus.
The story of Jesus teaches us the same thing. Jesus first was manifested in the flesh. He came to Earth and encountered humanity. His mission motivated Him to move about announcing and demonstrating the Kingdom while he set captives free. And after (and only after) the mission was finished with His death and resurrection, did He form a church that supported the mission.
Over and over again we see it: Jesus, Mission, Church. But often our lives and what makes us comfortable cause us to live differently than what we see. My challenge to you today is to make sure these aren’t just your priorities, but to make sure they are lived outin the right order.
Jesus.
Mission.
Church.
How Brotherhood Happens
But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.
-Jesus, Matthew 23:8
Jesus has an answer for hierarchy–it’s called brotherhood.
Unfortunately, many are unfamiliar with what brotherhood looks like. Far fewer know how to achieve brotherhood. Because brotherhood helps level the playing field, I think it’s important to answer this question: how do a group of believers become brothers and sisters?
First, the obvious: Brotherhood starts when you have the same parents. I know this seems elementary, but the church can only achieve brotherhood with other born again believers. There can be no brotherhood where God is not our Father through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s through Christ’s atoning death that we are adopted into the family of God as sons and daughters.
But once adopted, there is a practical reality that must be achieved. It does us no good to be brothers and sisters in name only. There are many churches that exist where everyone is called brother so-and-so and sister so-and-so, but the term is only one of false honor and doesn’t hold up in real life.
In my experience, once we’ve established the common ground of the cross of Jesus Christ as the rallying point for our family, the next step is to open up to one another about our weakness. But someone has to go first. In every case, whenever I’ve had a group of believers around me and I haven’t been afraid to show the very ugliest parts of my life to them, it’s allowed them to see me as human. They help me. They lift me up. They are given courage to to show their weakness as well.
And this, friends, is the most basic form of communitas we can achieve as the church. We go from being people competing against each other for superiority into being people who love and support each other in our journey out of brokenness. When we admit we are all messed up–all more ugly than we want to admit–and we all equally need a savior, this is fertile ground for true brotherhood to emerge.
And it’s this true brotherhood, this love that finds one another at the foot of the cross that protects us from believing you or I are higher than the other. And it sustains brotherhood through the glories and successes because we know where we came from and we know we helped each other get there.
So, brothers and sisters, I know I sound like a broken record, but if you don’t have people like this in your life, please find some. Please gather together with broken people who have found Jesus and admit your brokenness. Bring it out into the light. This is what John is saying when he says this:
…[I]f we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another…
-1 John 1:8
Hierarchy ends when brotherhood begins. Brotherhood begins when we gather as broken saints around a saving cross. And this is the birthing of true fellowship.
How Brotherhood Eliminates Hierarchy
But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.
-Jesus, Matthew 23:8
One of the things I think we miss in our crusade against hierarchy is the simple way Jesus taught us to avoid it. Simply put, brotherhood is the antidote to hierarchy.
Quickly: Hierarchy is a word that means there are some people or things higher than others. It was first a word used to distinguish orders of angels, then to distinguish rank among ministers in the church, and then came to be used in society and business management. Why is it bad? Jesus had this revolutionary idea that there shouldn’t be hierarchy within the movement He started. I believe He saw the danger it caused when people thought some of God’s people were better than others.
Jesus not only warned us about hierarchy, though. He gave us the solution to it. The solution isn’t limiting our uniqueness or hiding our giftedness. The solution to the problem of hierarchy is becoming brothers*. If you’ve ever had brothers (or been fortunate enough to have friends that are like brothers) you’ll know why. Brotherhood growing up is one of the first forms of communitas that we come to understand. Healthy brotherhood gives everyone a place without elevating men or women above one another.
I had the unique privilege growing up of watching my dad interact with his father and three brothers. My dad was the youngest of five children, younger by about ten years than his next oldest brother. And yet, when my dad and his brothers got together there was no struggle for superiority. When my grandfather passed away, no one tried to become the new leader of the family. There was no struggle for grandpa’s status. It was just the brothers (and my aunt of course) still being family. They knew who they were (sons and the daughter of Albert Kolder) and they knew each other well enough to respect but not glorify any of the others.
Imagine a church like that. A church where every person who was following Jesus didn’t strive for position. No one tried to become the father of the family. Everyone was confident in their place in the spiritual family. They knew their identity and their value. In fact, they were so healthy as brothers and sisters, they eventually matured to the place where they were healthy enough to start families of their own.
Yet even among churches that hate hierarchy the most (which I would argue comes with its own set of problems), there is little expression of brotherhood. And so suspicion, animosity, and a lack of love often result. It’s a little like a country who hates an evil ruler of another country. So they depose the the ruler of that country and install another, only to find out that the new ruler is just as bad or worse than the one they installed. The fear of hierarchy becomes as bad of a ruler for a church as any hierarchy ever would.
But Jesus taught us a better way. If we would learn to be brothers and sisters, hierarchy would whither as a result. How do we learn to be brothers and sisters? More on that tomorrow…
Photo Credit: Following in his brother’s footsteps by Scott Monty
*If you’re reading this and you’re a lady, know that brotherhood is merely a the best word that I can use. God calls us all sons regardless of our gender. I get to be part of the bride of Christ some day. We all have…ahem…gender terms…in the Bible that don’t make us comfortable. Know you’re included.
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 