BLOG. 12/3/14. ENCHANTED COMMUNITY? IS THE CHURCH ENCHANTED?

A few years ago I wrote a book entitled: Enchanted Community: Journey Into the Mystery of the Church (which gave this web site its name). I had sent the manuscript to a couple of venerable missionary heroes of mine, who had been friends and encouragers for a long time, … and asked their opinion. Their response was that they were excited about the book, but questioned the use of the word “enchanted” in describing the church. I readily admit that the word ‘enchanted’ has some connotations and carries some baggage that could cause some confusion.

But then … even though it may be a bit manipulative, it connotes that there is something magic at work, or something that makes it alluring that defies merely human explanation. I took the risk and gave the book that title. You see, if Jesus was so emphatic that his disciples were inadequate to carry out the mandate that he was giving them, until he had endowed them with the Holy Spirit, … or that it was necessary for them that he go away so that the Spirit should come, … or that they were to wait in Jerusalem until that promise was fulfilled, … then there’s something going on here that is not humanly explainable, something supernatural, something that is to empower them to accomplish the outrageous task of making disciples in every ethnic group in the world.

Paul will elaborate on this and make the picture even more awesome, when he describes the church as the dwelling place of God by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:22). He will also tell his readers that the Spirit that indwells them is the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead (Ephesians 1:17-21). He repetitively reminds his readers that we are not those who walk in merely human ways—or in the ‘flesh’—but those who live by the Spirit. He will describe the fruits of that Spirit that is to be displayed in us, and which is the divine nature worked out in our human lives.

So if we take this seriously, and ingest the implications of this, … does that make the church ‘enchanted’ or weird, so humanly unexplainable? Or maybe we need to ask the question, does it make us totally eccentric (in the truest sense of that word), and as those who march to a different drummer? Why would Jesus insist that those who would follow him must lay down their lives, be willing to be executed if needs be, in order to follow him? Does that make discipleship hazardous to our health?

At his Caesarea Phillip affirmation of his role as the true Messiah of Israel, he then announces that upon that reality he is going to call out a community to implement his New Creation and that all the forces of the dominion of darkness will not be able to withstand his church. This is our calling. His church/ecclesia will liberate humankind from its attempts at autonomy in which they vainly seek to live their lives without God, and will, rather, set them free and give them a life that is abundant, that is self-giving, that radiates his divine nature.

But … such an understanding doesn’t fit so much of the institutional Christianity that we see in so many places, since so many church institutions are totally explainable in merely human terms, and don’t require anything supernatural, any power that comes from God alone, any fullness of the Holy Spirit. They’re merely ‘religious’.

Do I think that folk who inhabit many traditional church institutions, and profess to be followers of Jesus, have a clue about this? Probably not, but then such church institutions may not have much to do with the church that Jesus is building anyhow, and which church flies beneath radar, but which exhibits an enchantment that makes it a true mystery, and enticing to those still walking in darkness—not impressive sanctuaries and institutional paraphernalia, but authentic New Creation demonstrations—colonies of God’s New Humanity in Christ. It’s worth pondering.