The Church-A Living Organism; not an Organization!

The Church: A Living Organism- not an Organization!

By Mary Ann Wray

“As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ….But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 1 Peter 2: 4-5 & 9-10

I was raised in ‘church’. I went to mass every Sunday after giving my confession on Saturdays. I did everything the church told me I needed to do in order to be right with God and accepted by Him. There was no guarantee I would go to Heaven. Chances are I would go to a place called purgatory after death to have all residue sins burned out of my soul before I was fit to stand before my judge. Year after year I did penance, communion, sacraments and mass, but week after week I was left feeling empty and dry spiritually. I knew there was more…

In 1976 I was introduced to Jesus and the Holy Spirit by some friends. There, in a Catholic Charismatic prayer meeting, I met the King of Kings through the person of the Holy Spirit! My life was forever changed. As I began to devour the scriptures God began to shed new light on my understanding about what it meant to be a Christian, a saint of God, and to have Heaven as my eternal destination!

For the past 38 years He has been teaching me these things and what it also means to be part of His “Church”.  In the past I looked at Church as an organization made up of priests, leaders, members, a building, a board and many activities including outreach. While these things exist and serve a purpose, this my friends is not God’s definition of the church!

It is interesting to note that the word church is used 77 times in 76 verses of the KJV. The actual definition of the word church according to the Greek Lexicon is this:

1.       Ekklésia-a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place, an assembly

1.       an assembly of the people convened at the public place of the council for the purpose of deliberating

2.       the assembly of the Israelites

3.       in a Christian sense

1.       an assembly of Christians gathered for worship in a religious meeting

2.       a company of Christian, or of those who, hoping for eternal salvation through Jesus Christ, observe their own religious rites, hold their own religious meetings, and manage their own affairs, according to regulations prescribed for the body for order's sake

3.       those who anywhere, in a city, village, constitute such a company and are united into one body

4.       the whole body of Christians scattered throughout the earth

5.       the assembly of faithful Christians already dead and received into heaven

We can see from God’s perspective that the church is an innumerable group of people ‘called out’ of one place into another for HIS eternal purpose. A better modern term might be “Assembly”….God’s Assembly!  What is it that God has called us out from and in-to and together as one?  We see it in 1 Peter 2:9…He has called us “out of darkness” INTO “His marvelous light!” 

The darkness He calls us out of is the “system organization” of this world and sin! Satan is the god of this world (cosmos) and the father of lies. He is a cruel taskmaster offering temporary and pleasurable benefits but demanding by overbearing lordship complete allegiance to darkness with the cruelest tricks up his sleeve. His job is to rob, kill and destroy and he accomplishes it all through lies and deception. We see the evidence of this through the moral decay and compromise all around us today. Good is being called evil and evil good (Isaiah 5: 20). His sole MO is to take mankind all the way to Hell with him forever!

However, our Heavenly Father is the Father of light, mercy and truth. He sent His son Jesus to give us life (life in the complete sense of body, soul and spirit) and gives it to us in His abundance! (Matthew 5: 16, John 10: 10, 2 Corinthians 1: 12, Colossians 1: 23, James 1: 17).

Getting back to the concept of church and what it really is….it is God’s people, together comprising a living temple: His Body! We, the people of God make up the Body of Christ. We are a body not a building made with human hands (Mark 14: 58; Acts 7: 48)! God formed and fashioned us into His image, to be His temple and together we make up His corporate, complete Body with Christ as the Head. Therefore, we are a living breathing organism made up of many parts. For this reason, God is quick to condemn sins against the Body such as fornication, adultery, homosexuality and dissension (1 Cor. 6: 9-11 & 18-20; Proverbs 6: 16-19).

Yesterday in our time of corporate prayer, the Lord gave my husband a mental picture as we were praying prior to the start of our evening service. He saw a huge organ light mass pulsating and breathing in and out. He didn’t know what it meant and neither did I at first. Later, as service began and the presence of God began to shift and move through different ones during praise and worship and a time of ministry, the Lord showed me that that the picture God gave Bob was that of His church. We are a living organism that lives and moves and has its being by the breath (pnuema-spirit) of God. Prayer is what causes us to come together and be activated as His living organism in the earth through the power of His Holy Spirit!

Here is the definition of an organism:
1. a form of life composed of mutually interdependent parts that maintain various vital processes.

2. a form of life considered as an entity; an animal, plant, fungus, protistan, or moneran.

3. any organized body or system conceived of as analogous to a living being: the governmental organism.

4. any complex thing or system having properties and functions determined not only by the properties and relations of its individual parts, but by the character of the whole that they compose and by the relations of the parts to the whole.

Therefore, the church is not a PHYSICAL building or an organization put together according to man’s plan and agenda-WE together, His called out ones are His building, His Body, interdependent upon one another in Christ (1 Cor.12: 12-26). We may meet inside of a building once or twice a week, but together we make up the whole part of His Body. As such, we are called together for such a time as this out of the world of darkness into His marvelous light to shine forth His truth as beacons in a landscape of untruths, half-truths, lies and deceit. We are knit together through prayer and baptized by the Holy Spirit into one corporate Body (1 Cor. 12: 13)!

Beloved, we MUST see ourselves as part of a whole. I am part of you and you are part of me. We need each other to function as God created us to be….ONE in a spirit of Unity in Christ as our Head! What better way to be incorporated by God but through prayer and deep fellowship with one another? How can you slander and talk evil of someone that you are fervently praying for? How can you hate your own flesh and blood? (Galatians 5: 15). He is coming back for a glorious church/Body without spot blemish or wrinkle. Together we make up His beloved bride who is being prepared for a great Wedding Feast. But until then He is equipping us and knitting us together to be bearers of light and one another’s burdens until He comes back again!