THE WHOLE CHRISTIANITY
One certain time, when I was still a newly converted, I was in a prayer meeting in my church, when we heard somebody calling outside. One of the members of the group went out to see and when he returned, he brought with him a beggar, who was asking for food.
To my surprise, instead of offering him some food, this brother preached to the starving man a long sermon, followed by a prayer and a fervent exhortation so that he converted of his evil ways and finally dismissed him, simply.
His commentary was that it was useless to help an infidel and that without converting; he would continue to beg at the door of the church. This scene shocked me, however, as a newcomer I rushed into a thorough exam of the Scriptures, to try to find the biblical foundation for those brothers' attitude.
I have to admit that until today I haven’t found such foundation. Downright to the opposite, what I found in the Gospel were exhortations of the very Lord Jesus, in the sense that we loved our neighbor, without any discrimination. For twice, after preaching to a crowd, Jesus didn't dismiss them simply, but He fed them all with abundance.
How to forget James 2:15-16: “If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?”
Therefore, I don't have faith in a Gospel made of words alone, but in a gospel made also of action and of solidarity. Action in the sense of being coherent with what one preaches in one’s own life, and solidarity in the sense of aiding and serving one’s neighbor. The Gospel is not just meant to the spirit, but also to the mind and the body and in that way, whoever preaches the Gospel of the Spirit, which is timeless, must also coherently offer help to the mind and to the body, which are temporary.
If God created and sees man as a whole - body, soul, mind and spirit – how to treat people as if they were just a soul or a spirit, in a partial way?
I do believe, therefore that repentance must be preached, above all, but also that, at the same time, our hand must not be shortened before the sinner's needs and much less before the saints’ needs. Whoever preaches the Gospel must introduce himself before everything as a servant of God, before heralding himself as minister or priest of the church. Would Jesus' example have been other?
I have faith in the preaching of the Gospel of the Truth, but also in the Gospel of action and of cooperation, because that’s what I have learned from Jesus' life, who fully lived up to his message, who looked for to heal people as a whole and not just to console the soul or to save the spirit.
ELITISM
Many Protestant and Evangelical churches today, are private property of the wealthy classes and of well-off men. Now, the house of God is not exclusive place of any particular social class or of church members alone, who meet there in pre-scheduled days and hours, as in a social club.
A while ago, in a catechism group in the church, one of the participants, a newcomer, lamented a fact that occurred with her husband, who had been kept from entering the church to seek her, for he had an urgent question to discuss with her, on the alleged reason of not being appropriately dressed. According to her, he was returning from his work and therefore he was dressed as a worker. This fact, turned out in one of the motives that took her to leave that church.
I am not pleading that we should admit in the pews every sort of beggars, prostitutes and junkies, sitting side by side with members of the church. I think though that the church should not close its doors to whomever knocks outside, asking for help and aid, what requires the creation and maintenance of specific ministries for this purpose. It is not about diminishing the church role to a simple matter of social or material care, but the church should be above all a safe haven, where the desperate can find the food, the comfort and the cure, so much for the body as for the soul. It’s just not enough to eventually set about regular voluntary groups that rally to preach the Gospel downtown and to pray for the beggars and prostitutes in the streets. The church needs to be open for the lost. Wasn’t for their rescue Christ came for?
It is necessary that precautions should be taken regarding some people who seek the church, on the pretext of getting aid. Some people have a hardened heart and are full of iniquity and they really don't seek the church with a worthy purpose. However, the excessive concern with this type of people has been transforming the church in a spiritual elite’s stronghold, totally divorced of its universal objective. When Paul preached that the Christian and the church should live separate from the world, certainly it was not exactly that what he had in mind.
In a small Baptist church I attended in Belo Horizonte, there was a ministry that was assigned of keeping the doors of the church open over lunch time. In the front gate, a plate was put, inviting the passing-by people to enter and hear the word of God. It was in one of those hours that I decided to go inside that church and soon after became a regular member.
From a 2005 statistics, it was found that 85 percent of the churches in the United States have lagging or declining attendance. That's approximately 340,000 churches. In other words, 340,000 churches needed a turnaround. Christianity Today magazine conducted a thorough study involving 31 of those churches that had witnessed a turnaround in attendance, finances, purpose, and/or spirit to participate.
At the end of this study, five churches were selected to present their testimony on how the changes took place. I was not surprised to check out that all the five congregations had taken the same road in order to find their way to be a living church. That road was, in all cases, one that led the church to meet the needs of their communities, to develop ministries of service providing spiritual, material and emotional support to the community around them. (1)
It’s becoming increasingly common the church-without-walls model. It’s an open church, not turned inwards, to its selected members, but outwards, to the community around it. One of the churches which has adopted that model, in Washington D.C., went so far as to call itself a street church, in other words, it doesn't possess a temple of its own. They meet at theaters, subway stops and wherever there is a considerable flow of people. The evangelistic crusades are held in public squares, bus stops and parking lots. With this, those God workers have been reaching people that live distant of God because of personal restrictions, prejudices or past frustrations related to the instituted churches. Jesus also preached in the temple, but most of his ministry was done in the streets, in the fields, close to those marginalized and to the lost.
One certain time, I witnessed in a Catholic denomination program on the TV, an account of a paralytic youth, who had converted to Catholicism. The history of this youth illustrates well and also exposes the central problem of the current Evangelicalism.
This young man suffered for not having anyone to aid him, for few things could he do by himself, besides disposing of very little resources. According to him, several religious groups approached him to offer help: Catholic, spiritualists and evangelical. Of these, the ones he least valued were the evangelicals, which, according to him, only offered prayers and biblical teaching, but they didn't dispose to aid him not even with his physical difficulties. Differently of the others, which besides the spiritual comfort, also had helped him both materially and with his basic needs.
The Evangelical and Protestant Christians, in general, show a tendency to avoid to dirty their hands with the marginalized and to get involved with the troubles of the homes in darkness. They prefer to intercede for them in prayer, in the comfort of their own homes and of their churches. Not that this is not necessary or that is not effective when done in earnest, but serving the neighbor involves much more than this. One of my mother's frequent complaints - she was a Catholic and later converted to a religion called Spiritism - before giving her life to Christ, was that the "believers", as she called them, were mostly lazy and totally contrary to the idea of disposing themselves for personal help, or of "putting the hands on the mass" to aid people. Of course she generalized, for the true Christian doesn't actually act like this, but that was the reality she saw around her.
During the time I served as volunteer to some public institutions, I noticed the colleagues´ natural preference for the day-cares. Few of them disposed to work at the slums, in the asylums and hospitals. However, it is dirt right in those places, where nobody likes to go, that live those who Jesus is looking for, those he wants us to help him to reach. During the time I served in slums, I could feel how strongly these people are in need of help and both material and spiritual orientation, and also the sheer dimension of their material, emotional and spiritual absolute poverty condition.
It is precisely in this life condition into which are buried the marginalized, the sick and the elderly, of physical, mental and emotional weakness, that Christ's calling can be heard in their hearts. It is of no surprise, therefore, that most of the Evangelical Christians come from this class of people. They convert to Jesus, not for being ignorant or careless, as many criticize, but above all because their soul is fully open for God.
In this sense, Evangelicalism has truly been accomplishing the work of God and has built itself as the true Christian church, because it is able to reach, through the word of God, Christ's true flock. However, it fails miserably in herding this flock.
CORPORATISM
We find today at the Evangelical and Protestant churches, a strong corporate structure, almost as rigid as that found at the Catholic Church. Obviously, it is necessary the existence of an administrative structure for the secular organization of the church and also for its spiritual direction.
However, that hierarchy and the way it’s constituted has been causing disputes and disagreements inside the churches and, more serious than this, it has been promoting a type of idolatry addressed to the figure of their more outstanding members, which happens, in some cases, to be similar to the Catholics’ cult to their ecclesiastical authorities and their miracle-maker saints.
The main point is that this hierarchical structure of organization of the Evangelical and Protestant churches, in general, has been building a corporative centeredness that turns them more concerned with their own preservation and their specific rules than with their main activity.
On behalf of a religious zeal of the integrity and fidelity of the doctrine adopted in the denominations, the pastors forget that what they can do on their own for the work of God is much less than what could be accomplished if they developed and sent off disciples. Often I see the pastor of a church traveling to participate in services and administrative appointments in other churches, when he could be substituted at those tasks by a competent disciple. I believe that this is mostly due to a flourishing culture among the Evangelical and Protestant, of worshipping the leaders of higher prominence and charisma.
Jesus, himself showed this example, when forming, with so much devotion and care his chosen disciples and sending them off, in his name. In this he was also followed by Paul, who had so much zeal for his disciples as for the doctrine he preached. In other words, the Evangelical churches neglect the discipleship, that is, the formation, by the pastors, of disciples in adequate quantity and attributes, as the most efficient means to promote a multiplication of the church while institution and, consequently, the diffusion of the Gospel.
The current theological graduation schools and seminars are, in general, settled towards the graduation of pastors, through extensive and many times expensive learning programs. There is today an unfolding of the theological teaching, aimed at the formation of church leaders, with a not so deep knowledge level, however with the same purposes. The Sunday School also acts in the sense of providing a basic learning program in the theological doctrine of the denominations, however with more restrict pedagogy and scope.
Nevertheless, I see that the objective of the Christian teaching in that sense is quite limited, with a chief purpose of fostering the participants' edification and spiritual growth. Of course, through those courses, much new leadership is revealed, but the engagement of those leaders is just made within limited areas inside of the structure of the church alone.
CENTRALISM
In the origins of Christianity, the church didn't meet in temples, but in the houses of their members. It is not known for sure how those meetings were held, but it is known that there was full communion among the people and perseverance in prayer.
In Chapter 16 of Paul’s epistle to the Romans, he makes recommendations and greets several major leaders (pastors) of such home-churches, known and trained by him in Asia, including women. He namely mentions five home- churches (verses 5, 10, 11, 14 and 15).
The Catholic Church created a center-driven culture and the doctrine of its exclusive right of celebration of the service and of the doctrinaire authority, which generated the thoroughly ingrained notion in the Christianity that the church reunions can only be held in the official temples and must be conducted only by priests, bishops or highly qualified ecclesiastical authority.
It’s unarguable that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, the ministration of the sacraments, as well as the preaching of the Scriptures as activities that demand high devotion, life consecration and spiritual knowledge, on the part of those who lead these activities.
Yet, Luther, when created the basis for the rebirth of Christianity, had also turned against this centralized culture of the Catholic Church, which delegated with total exclusiveness to the Pope and his organizational hierarchy, the authority for the exercise of any activities related to the Christian priesthood. Luther maintained that God is revealed to all who seek for him with purpose firmness, honesty and true determination to know and obey him.
The Scriptures are not a hermetic work, accessible to just some few initiates, as in the so called occult sciences. It is right that a thorough study is requested for a better understanding of the Scriptures and of the historical and cultural context in which the Bible was created. However, it is not necessary a doctorate or even a master's degree for a servant's of God training in the ministration of his Word or in the leading of meetings of members of the church. Or, in Paul's words: the Gospel is constituted above all of virtues and not just of words.
I have attended churches in that the domestic meetings were instituted and encouraged, led by specially skilled and trained leaders. The benefit of these meetings was thoroughly visible, whether as a means of evangelization, of the invigoration of faith, of fostering the growth and communion among participants. Those meetings are quite rich in the sharing of life experiences and knowledge, in the offering of emotional comfort and in the support to those who are going through a hard time in their spiritual journey, as well in answering newcomers typical questions about faith.
The “cellular church” accomplishes the purpose of God, brings growth with effectiveness and produces leaders committed and pleased in generating disciples. That is exactly in obedience to what God has pledged: that disciples of all of nations were made. (Psalm 2-8 and Mathew 28-19,20)
The domestic meetings of the church have in mind the disciples' multiplication and the invigoration of the church, so that the Kingdom of God may grow with spiritual authority and success. These extensions of the main temple take the church out of the exclusiveness of clergymen’s drive and take it back the Christian community. The community that breaks through; that recovers its authority and assumes the individual priestly identity, restores the faith and moves on to accomplish the purpose of winning lives for God.
This form of congregation of the church is a great challenge, because it requires participation of all the parishioners and unleashes the layman spiritual authority, although under discreet surveillance. The primary goal is to make a leader out of each member.
When delegating spiritual authority, however, it is necessary a certain care, because some types of infantile and egocentric behavior might show up, requiring all the community to be prepared. The success is exactly in the watching of the meetings with the learning leaders. Those meetings should be strictly frequent and the Word of God should always be emphasized. The new leaders must not feel forsaken, but always be probed in their heart, closing the breaches so that Satan doesn't hurry, going ahead, contaminating the heart. To make a disciple is an incalculable investment. It is possible to produce a church member in 30, 60, 90 days, however, making a disciple takes a whole life.
Those domestic meetings, in my opinion, have a fundamental role in the consolidation of the experience of the real Christian life and a powerful instrument in the diffusion of the Gospel, when properly supervised by the managing body of the church. However, this strategy has been relegated to a second plan, or even entirely discarded by most of the Christian denominations. This "democratization" of the church, has been mistaken by many church authorities as a threat to the doctrinaire integrity and an encouragement to the abuse of faith, to individualism and to the blossoming of false denominations. It is well-known fact though that some sort of problems and some lamentable abuses have taken place, above all in the so called G12 model.
However, disputes, abuses and deviations also take place inside the official temples, internally to the own hierarchy of the church, whether between the pastor and their ministers (Evangelists, presbyters, deacons) or among these ministers and other members, who carry out other leadership functions inside the organization. I believe in the cellular church model, not as an independent church, but as an extension of the main temple, under the authority and the pastoral orientation.
In that way, this congregation form is not just one more innovation among so many modernisms that eventually spring up in modern churches, but an urgent need for the propagation of the Gospel and for the spiritual shaping of a true church. An active and authentic church, made of sure and faith-strengthened followers, through the sharing of their lives in Christ and of the true spiritual communion, and no just composed of a great audience of spectators that reduces their Christian practice to a mere attendance to the Sunday services and to some daily minutes of prayer, that doesn't produce fruits and that can’t really live out the Gospel in their everyday life.
SHEPHERDS WHO DON'T KNOW THEIR SHEEP
" I am the good shepherd; and I know mine own, and mine own know me" John 10:14
In the beginning of the church history, the Bible tells that the first pastors were itinerant, in other words, they visited their congregations one by one, in many cities, looking for to guide, to correct, to instruct and to comfort material and spiritually all of the people.
The Catholic Church, faithful to this tradition, divided the territories under responsibility of each ecclesiastical authority in the hierarchical scale. In this division, the parish is the smallest activity territory, designated to the parish priest or vicar. In the country cities and even in the great cities, some time ago, the regular vicar visits to their parishioners were fairly common, whom he knew as his own family and to whom he assisted, whenever possible or necessary, in their own homes.
With the onset of the fast-paced rhythm of modern life and the territorial growth of the parishes, the priests have more and more returned to their residences, partly driven by the new countless tasks they were assigned and partly moved by a certain disregard to this activity, which certainly became quite tiresome. The face-to-face contact with the public has been delegated more and more to lay groups trained by the church and to the so called pastoral groups, which are actually the equivalent to the ministries of the Evangelical Church.
This same phenomenon of the vicar's estrangement in relation to their parishioners that has taken place at the Catholic Church has also occurred at the Evangelical churches. It is less and less common the pastor’s visits to church members’ homes, for several reasons, most of which of administrative matter. The Increasingly larger attributions assigned to the pastors, regarding tasks in their majority of secular order, demand their continuous presence inside the church and out of his territory. The current pastor’s external agenda is limited to trips to minister, as a guest, the teaching of the word of God in churches other than his own and to participations in Congresses and meetings, in the administrative extent of their denominations. The pastors of our days have of course their share of responsibility in this situation, due to certain unwillingness to taking on the task of keeping in touch with his herd. They frequently complain about not feeling welcome at many homes, of hearing too many complaints and of being forced to deal with ordinary and sometimes quite wearisome troubles.
Anyway, the fact is that vicars and pastors have been more willing to delegate the direct contact with their church members to direct or indirect assistants, moving away of the personal conviviality with the congregation. I believe this is not a good decision, for how can a pastor possibly guide his flock if he doesn’t know his sheep?
In spite of all the inherent inconveniences related to the itinerant character of a pastor’s life, I believe it to be indispensable this personal interaction with the members of the church and even with non-members, outside the church. The pastor's personal life should be transparent to the whole community, because he has once committed it to the cause of his ministry and, therefore to the work of God. The troubles drew from the fact of being exposed to common people sorrows, should be accepted as-is, as a though reality to face, yet this is the very stuff that God uses to foster our spiritual growth. As a matter of fact, it is this way a pastor needs to work if he intends to be truly a useful servant, and to produce real life changes inside his church. Otherwise, how can he really intercede for the people? Relying on information passed by his assistants? Reading the prayer requests hastily thrown down on the pulpit?
The priority order in the pastor’s agenda is, therefore inverted, because the administrative activities should be the ones to consume the least time, and many of these could be delegated to his assistants and even to non-church members. On the other hand, the activities related to the spiritual guidance of his flock, should receive the higher priority of time and effort, because they are the ones that really count, for they yield fruits for God.
I recognize that, alike any human being, the pastor has also his needs of rest and leisure, however it is necessary to have in mind that, more than a doctor who consecrated his life to save material lives, the pastor has dedicated his life as a sacrifice to save souls for God and therefore he must, insofar as possible, to adapt his personal needs to his work calendar and not the opposite.
It is urgent that the pastors return to their original role as spiritual leaders of the church but don't conform to this status, as bureaucrats, full of pomp and vanity. It is urgent that these modern pastors, who don't know their sheep, trade in their elegant suits and glamorous agendas, for simpler dressings and set off on the way. It is urgent that they take their crook and go in search of the conquest of the hearts and minds of their sheep and make sure their flock marches on through safe ways.
CHURCHES OF BLESSINGS
The major goal of the Christian life, truly committed with the salvation, is Christ. After Christ, the cross and after the cross, the eternal life, the Promised Land. This is the correct perspective of a life truly consecrated to God, as we are taught in the Scriptures.
However, we see a regrettable degeneration of this original Christian perspective today, produced by modern theologies that completely mistake the Scriptures. The Evangelical denominations turned to the so called grace and wealth theologies, are becoming more and more popular.
These theologies are grounded on the belief that God doesn't admit their children to suffer in this world, either for illnesses, family conflicts, demoniac influences or for lack of money. According to these theologies, it’s up to the believer to ask and even to demand of God the fulfillment of supposed unconditional promises of blessings and prosperity in their lives, through a total engagement in regular church campaigns for this end.
Those campaigns, miserably, involve usually bizarre things such as cabalistic numbers like “seven weeks”, “forty days”, and some churches have come to the ridicule of introducing superstitious rituals involving handkerchiefs, sacred oils, letters, coarse salt and public sessions of exorcism, among others. Moreover, such campaigns are in general pumped by great sums of the believer’s financial contributions, on the pretext of showing in so doing, a steady faith.
I sincerely believe that, of all the deviations happened in the midst of the Christian church, none saddens more the Spirit of God than the above described. When the Christian loses the central goal of his journey, he or her also loses the right direction and, therefore strays from the path of the Lord, although in a way seemingly fair, as try to make believe those fake Christian churches. The most ironic in all this is that one of those megachurches, which boasts an expressive number of members, shows, above its temples’ doors, the slogan: "Jesus Christ is the Lord."
I find it unnecessary to demonstrate here how anti-biblical are those theologies, because that is evident to any Christian endowed with the minimum of discernment. It is evident that God doesn't want us to suffer, for He is no cruel father. However, the suffering and the pain are conditions practically inevitable in this world plunged into evil and corruption. The mistake lies in leaving aside the main purpose of the spiritual life to concentrate in wrestling the everyday tribulations. It is necessary indeed to face the tribulations, but not forgetting that God is sovereign and he knows the exact measure about everything that we should pass in this world. Some of these tribulations are actually trials, and God allows us to go trough them in order to strengthen our faith, to build up a faithful, brave and righteous servant's spiritual character.
God has never promised his children a delighted life in this world, free from pain and tribulations, quite on the contrary. God’s promises of happiness and eternal bliss are spiritual ones, for those who have been proven worthy of inheriting the eternal life, in his Kingdom, those judged worthy of entering the Promised Land. Many are, however the ones who attend those churches of grace and testify having been favored with countless family and financial blessings. Harmony between spouses, thriving businesses, a new home or the latest car model in the garage. I believe that some of these blessings are really legitimate, but most of those who feel victorious in their campaigns should instead be worried, because the truth is that they have already received their share of blessings, in a material way, nothing having therefore to inherit in the true life, when they leave this world, for their own choice, for it’s written: “But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation”.
The churches of blessings are popular, because they give hope to a dream rocked by most of the people, the one of just to being happy. The churches that preach the true message of God though, are not popular, because they speak above all about regret, about submission to the will of God, about the need of changing personal values, about serving and being faithful to God. This takes us back to the history of the fleeing of the Jewish people from Egypt, throughout the desert, when they complained everyday of the bad life conditions, of the water shortness, of the privation of their favorite food and of the fatigue. All the Jewish people wanted, during their journey to freedom through the desert was to be happy, but they didn't understand that, in order for that to happen, to reach the true happiness, they should before humiliate beneath the potent hand of the Lord and to accept their tribulations as inevitable, however transient, since they were bound to take hold of a truly blessed land.
The journey of the Jewish people throughout the desert typifies our spiritual journey heading for the salvation of our souls. On starting the journey and setting ourselves about to the path, it is necessary to remind, everyday, that our target is Christ, then the cross, upon which it’s necessary to crucify our ego for finally, to reach the true happiness. This is the real proof of the true faith, the one of sacrificing our mean dreams and illusory passions on behalf of a real promise of God of full blessedness, of happiness and joy beside Lord Jesus, when we receive our reward.
PROFANE TEMPLES
When God chose the Jewish people to build up his church in this world, He ordered the construction of a magnificent tabernacle, where He would manifest his glory and where only the priests, strictly prepared and consecrated for this end would enter.
The Jewish tabernacle was the only sacred temple ever in the history of Judaism and of the Christianity. The great first temple, built by Salomon, was profaned by Nebuchadnezzar. The second great temple, built after the return of the Jewish people from the Babylonian exile, which glory should be greater than the former’s, was destroyed by the Romans, remaining only a single wall, the Wall of Lamentations. In this same temple, Jesus, about forty years ago had expelled, to whip blows, the street sellers that worked in its corridors, for they profaned the house of God.
There was, in all those situations, a common fact, that took God to abandon his people to their own luck, to their opponents' fury: Sin.
The pastor of my church in Ponta Grossa, preached a while ago in an emphatic and vehement way on Haggai 2:14, where we learn how the sin poisons everything that is pure, though the inverse process doesn't happen. The sin of a single person can contaminate an entire church that tolerates his or her conduct, with negligence. The pastor finished out his preaching retaking a theme quite common in his ministry and that is deeply linked to the this subject: the continuous profanation of our temples.
Our temples today just keep a pale memory of their sacred character, of a prayer house, where is invoked the presence of the Lord. Our temples today resemble more to ordinary public buildings, because they are continually profaned by the very people that frequent them and even by those who preach in their pulpits, or who play in their orchestras, choirs and praise bands.
Like our body is profaned when we prostituted, or the celebration of the Supper of the Lord is profaned when we eat it unworthily, the church is also profaned when we enter the temple to adore God or preach his word, having our lives divorced of the ways of Salvation.
God has constrained me to abandon a work I had taken up in Ponta Grossa, with a group of youths in recovery of drug and alcohol addiction, for a reason that only a while later was revealed to me: I had assumed that work being hooked to a serious vice, which I didn't get yet to curb.
If our sin contaminates our works, it also contaminates our adoration and our prayers. One cannot serve God and the world. That’s why God is absent of our temples, yet many Christians don't realize that, and are surprised when they hear about a church which was battered or invaded by burglars or destroyed by some catastrophe, either natural or human. Our esteem and our pride for our temples and denominations are entirely vain, as long as the temples of our bodies and of our homes keep being profaned by conducts that displease God and distance us from him.
