salvation

I have mentioned the theme of salvation in other places. Obviously it is often on my mind but not in the context of my non-christian friends. Yes they need salvation. Thats easy and of course I need to serve the great commission in their interest but salvation often comes to mind around my church friends. Salvation is not a choice. It is a response to the invitation of God to repent of who we are and to allow the indwelling of the Holy Spirit with the consequence that Christ manefests His nature through us individually and corporately as the church. I have often been confronted by really good people. I mean salt of the earth, easy to be around, charitable, loving people who explode with anger at the mention of church. Some of the faithful would say this was demonic but in truth, these wonderful people have simply encountered a "christian" and been wounded by their disappointment. Even the world has expectations that the presense of Christ should be delightful, comforting and even awesome but what they find usually leaves a bad taste in their mouths. It is our fault. We lure people in with Contemporary Christian Worship(raves). We teach relevant messages(Christless). We replace repentence and dying to self with promises of Holy Spirit power and fire and then send these "christians" out to burn the world. They are succeeding.
A few years ago my pastor was an overseer at Tehillah which met Monday nights at the Canada Christian College. They would draw hundreds of young people for a night of exciting worship and teaching. Most of these kids were students at the college. Many will be future leaders of the church. All worshipped till they dropped kind of thing. Laura Woodley(a song writer and worship leader) would announce each week that they needed people to go out on the streets of Toronto the following Saturday to witness and give stuff to the homeless. Only one or two out of hundreds ever came to do kingdom work. Where was the spirit of compassion after the spirit of party was gone?
If salvation is the inworking of the Spirit to manefest Christ in us and through us but if we neglect those that Christ came for and directed us toward, in favor of pimping out our church and worship teams then who among us are really saved.
Who is responsable for the souls of church members who come and serve and tithe but may not know Christ?????

House Church

I was invited to a small house gathering a few weeks ago. I was aquainted with the group from a previous version of the meeting, and they were looking at Genesis. I quite enjoyed the meeting, but there were parts missing that I would normally see in a "church". Now this particular group I know are looking for a really honest expression of the body, and they started very small in the leader's house, grew until they needed a hall which was my first encounter with them. And then they had a split over some issue or other,not described and are now once again at the leader's house. My observation was that in the larger group there seemed a more "church" like expression of the body with more distributed gifts. Then again the group split so perhaps these other building stones were in fact from another, or meant to be in another body. They may also have been immature or even not saved at all, which never stops people from taking control of and running churches. Just today while browsing at the Bibles for Missions Store I read of an evangelist, who met a 40 yr. member of a church. Always serving, always involved, yet something the evangelist said stirred this man to finally realize that he needed to know Christ. How many today are in leadership around Brantford and they have yet to actually be saved! How often are we told that it is wrong to question a leader!
No spirit filled Christian leader is ever afraid of close inspection, nor do they shy away from answering for their actions or admitting their mistakes. No spirit filled Christian ever thinks they are done learning of the Lord or that they are the most mature person of faith around.
What I liked about the little house meeting I went to was the transparancy of the leader. He was who he was. I hope that as time goes by he will find all the parts of his little group and become a fully functioning expression of the Lord's purpose for them. I don't know how many people that would take but it always takes the right number of right people and I hope that the next split will be the separating of a daughter church, the first of many.