A mature church

Isaiah 45:11-48:11

Ephesians 4:1-16

Psalm 68:19-35

Proverbs 24:3-4

I really like days like this when the readings join up and seem to give pretty much the one message.  In the Ephesians reading, the apostle Paul is writing about maturity in the church. This maturity is a gift that is given by the risen Jesus. He speaks about a church that is united in it's diversity, a church that is a song made up of rich harmony and counterpoint rather than voices singing in hollow unison.

For Paul the church is not a homogeneous unit but rather a diverse body with people who are as different from each other as arms are from eyes or hair is from kidneys. This difference manifests itself socially, racially, culturally and internationaly allowing for differences in age, gender, outlook and (within limits) theology.

How does this beautifully diverse church grow to maturity then? For Paul the recipe is very simple - at least on paper.  Paul tells us that God has gifted the church with a variety of different types of leaders. Apostles, prophets,evangelists, pastors and teachers. This variety of different people stands in sharp contrast to the unhealthy one man ministry model of many churches. Here in the Midlands as elsewhere people often refer to churches as William's church or Bob's church. This is unhealthy both for the congregation who become passive and the minister who either burns out or becomes conceited.

These evangelists, pastors, etc. exist not to do ministry for the laity but to encourage and enable the People of God in their own individual and collective ministries.  "12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ."

This gives many church leaders the heebie jeebies! If everyone is given responsibility for the church then who will be responsible for maintaining orthodoxy and the true Presbyterian/ Methodist/ Catholic/ Lutheran/ delete as appropriate faith? But ironically enough Paul is telling his readers that it is when power and responsibility is distributed throughout the body of Christ in a more or less even way that "Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love."

In other words good leadership that distributes power and responsibility around the Body of Christ is the very best type of leadership for ensuring that the People of God remain orthodox and orthopractic. Let's leave the last word to today's reading from Proverbs -  3 A house is built by wisdom and becomes strong through good sense. 4 Through knowledge its rooms are filled with all sorts of precious riches and valuables.