End the Scarcity Cycle

One of my favourite authors is Sir Terry Pratchett, who uses absurdity and humour to illustrate some of the most profound truths of human nature. In a book entitled ‘Small Gods,’ he explores the role of belief in the rise and fall of religion. “Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.” The book illustrates the terrible drift that naturally takes place in any community of faith. Faith in God begins a movement, that movement gets more and more organised over time until people forget the experiences that gave rise to the movement and begin to value the organisation over the movement. Over and over again throughout history this has been seen in religious orders, movements, denominations and churches. At the moment The Salvation Army in Australia is in the middle of one of the largest corporate restructures in the nation. There is a lot of talk about organisation, structure and strategy and it can sometimes seem as though the foundational experiences of those who started this movement have been lost. This is what our entire series “We Are The Church” has been about, focussing on the movement that still beats strongly at the heart of our organisation. It may be harder to move an organisation than organise a movement, but it is possible if we take the time to remember and focus on the experiences that drove the movement at the beginning. Less than 20 years after the resurrection of Jesus, we see evidence that a group of Jewish Jesus followers began to push the early church leaders to get the movement organised. They believed strongly in the Jewish way of life and since Jesus was a Jewish prophet they felt that it was God’s plan that new believers convert to judaism and follow the moral codes and practices outlined in the Old Testament and sacred writings of the Jews. The apostle Paul wrote a number of letters to reject the teaching of these so called ‘judaisers’ and to assert that the church is a movement of the Holy Spirit that bears witness to the love of God shown by Jesus on the cross of calvary.

Scripture References: Acts 15:1-35

From Series: We Are The Church | More Messages from Phil Inglis | Download Audio

From Series: "We Are The Church"