The Ministry of Presence

The industrial age began around 1760 and brought with it increasingly faster modes of transportation. The steam engine was patented in 1769. The Wright brothers took flight in 1903. Cars became increasingly common through the twentieth century. Now you can be anywhere in the world in a matter of hours. As speed has increased and the population has become more mobile, the connectedness of communities has waned. Front porches have been replaced by fenced back yards. Now with the information age, physical presence has been replaced by screens. Community dances and picnics have been replaced by home entertainment systems and Netflix. Sharing a meal with friends has been replaced by Facebook pictures of your meal (a trend that I will never understand!).

Through COVID shutdowns many workers found they can do their work remotely, but even tech businesses have discovered that being in the same building matters. “Management by walking around” is a necessary part of working together as a team for a common purpose.

Although church livestreaming was helpful during the pandemic, many Christians (but not all) have discovered that physical presence matters to the Body of Christ. We need real eye contact, handshakes, and hugs. We need to hear others singing in worship with us and to hear the pages of Bibles turning. We need to join together in communion and bow together in prayer at the altar.

But even with all the regularly scheduled gatherings of the church, I’m not sure that is enough for deep discipleship and spiritual intimacy between members of the Body. Jesus spent three years with His disciples doing nearly everything together 24-7. Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke went on a variety of long trips in pairs or trios. Acts 2:46 says the early believers were “day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes.” Does that kind of time investment only apply to people who have nowhere else to go and no way to get there? Can a phone call or Zoom meeting take the place of walking with one another and observing one another in action day by day? Can a couple hours per week at church suffice? We need extended, unstructured times to converse and find out what is happening behind the scenes of our carefully cultivated appearances.

In the midst of writing this, I paused and read a few pages of the closest book on my desk, which happened to be Erik Reynold’s book Discover: Ancient Truths for Today. He wrote:

“How great and gracious is our God? He gives us one another to spur us on in the faith. He knows that the life to which He has called us is difficult… What’s God’s plan when we start acting sideways? He’s given us brothers in Christ to tenderly reveal our sin and lovingly point us to the Gospel. What’s God’s plan when we are discouraged because of a tragic life circumstance? He’s given us sisters in Christ to pray with and point us to the hope we have in Christ Jesus. What’s God’s plan when we realize how weak we are? He’s given us brothers in Christ to remind us that our weakness is a gift so that we will be more apt to rely upon the Holy Spirit who indwells us” (39).

God has given us one another for a purpose, and yet our relationships within the church are often one of the most neglected blessings He’s given. I can’t count how many times my spirits have been lifted by a brief conversation with a brother in Christ when we cross paths at the end of my daily run, or when a coworker pauses at my office door to talk. I’ve been pondering—if I worked in a secular job and didn’t live across the road from my church, where would I find those regular tastes of the ministry of presence? I would be on a starvation diet of Christian relationships from Monday through Saturday every week. Would professional Christian counselors have any clients if the church were living up to all the “one anothers” of Scripture? We were made to live in community, but it seems like we’ve gotten about as far from that as we can and still call ourselves one Body.

May God reunite us so that we might better “encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thess. 5:11).

“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind” (1 Pet. 3:8).

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© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Conspiracy Theory

There is a conspiracy at work, but it may not be what you think. It doesn’t originate with the politicians, news agencies, communists, or capitalists. It originated in the Garden of Eden. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made” (Gen. 3:1). Jesus said of Satan, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44b), and the book of Revelation says, “And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev. 12:9a).

His desire is to create conflict and division in the Church, distracting us from our commission to spread the Gospel and make disciples of all nations. It doesn’t necessarily take great theological debates to divide us. It may come from the accumulation of little conflicts: to mask or not to mask; red state or blue state; public school, private school, or homeschool, etc. The past couple years have provided ample opportunity to disagree with one another on all sorts of issues.

The Apostle Paul urged: “Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:1b-3). Some days it feels like there is no unity there to maintain, but that too is a deception. The fact is that all believers are united in Christ. Paul went on, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (4:4-6).

We are one body, but we often fail to function as one. We let differences of opinion convince us that we don’t have much in common. Manmade divisions pull us apart and we forget that we have the Spirit of God uniting us. The deceiver often succeeds in distracting us from obeying the One who is “the Way, and the Truth, and the Life,” who has brought us to the Father (John 14:6).

We need to keep reminding one another of the deeper truths that unite us (emphasis added):

• “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ… Now you are the Body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor. 12:12, 27).
• “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph. 2:13-14).
• “As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions… Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him” (Rom. 14:1, 3).
• “[I pray] that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me” (John 17:21).

There are so many good things we could be doing if we weren’t kept busy disagreeing over non-essentials. We are supposed to be encouraging, comforting, praying for, and serving one another, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and caring for the sick, just to name a few.

What good works has God put on your agenda for this week?

“And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful” (Col. 3:14-15). “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor” (Rom. 12:9-10).

© 2021 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

What's in a Name?

Evangelical, Mainline, Conservative, Liberal, Methodist, Baptist, Adventist, American, Chinese—these are all terms that are commonly used to describe some segment of Christianity, and yet they may mean different things to different people. Lately it seems like there are dozens of articles comparing the beliefs and practices of evangelical Christians versus mainline Christians, yet often they don’t explain to the readers what they mean by those terms. I got tired of trying to remember who’s who, so I quit reading them.

The bigger problem, as I see it, is that we aren’t supposed to be dividing up the Body of Christ to begin with. The Apostle Paul wrote, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6 ESV). From God’s perspective there are Christians and non-Christians and that’s it. “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). Granted, there are different beliefs in some of the grey areas of Scripture and there are differences in polity and practice, but we are all one body.

Tony Evans comments in Horizontal Jesus:

“Even though we claim the same God and worship the same Lord, we have allowed differences in race, class, culture, preferences, priorities, platforms, and more to divide us. In doing so, we have reduced our cultural impact as the horizontal representatives of Jesus” (112).

“Keep in mind that we are not called to create unity but rather to preserve it. We don’t need to invent it—we just need to live in it. Unity with each other comes by God’s Spirit living in us… Unfortunately, though, too many of us align ourselves with preachers, politicians, or platforms more than we do with God’s Word” (117).

“If we want our Lord to show up with His powerful presence in the body of Christ, in our communities, and in our nation, one of the first things we need to realize is that Christ did not die for a denomination—He died for each one of us. Yes, preferences and platforms exist. However, we would be far more effective in influencing families, communities, and our culture with God’s kingdom principles based on His Word if we focused on our common purpose” (118).

“Unity is a greater preamble to the presentation of the gospel than anything else we could ever do” (122).

When the world sees only a fragmented and divisive church, what are they likely to assume about the faith we profess? If we are more concerned about our differences than about the Great Commission, is it any wonder our witness bears little fruit for the kingdom? When our social media posts reflect our politics more than our Savior, who are we expecting to convince? There are places and times for such discussions, but I believe they should be far less frequent and less public. We are ambassadors of Christ first and foremost (2 Cor. 5:20). How are we doing at representing Him?

“I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10).

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one… so that the world may believe that You have sent Me” (John 17:20-21).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.