The first of two weeks we will spend exploring some basic theology of the Church – what is it and why does it exist? In short, the Church is what theologians call the eschatological covenant community. That means the church exists as a divine community in unique relationship with God and that it points toward the coming Kingdom of God. This week we introduce that idea and explore the Church distinctive of a people in covenant.

As we prepare to move into deeper study of the identity, ministry, and practical functions of the Church, we pause to hear from Jesus himself, who reminds us who God is and what he’s doing in the world – a reminder essential to a healthy understanding of the nature and purpose of the Church.

For some Christians, prayer is ineffective and superfluous, yet a duty required by God. For others, prayer is a psychological tool to use throughout life, but doesn’t actually affect the the things that come to pass in the world. But when prayer is understood to be one element of God’s genuine love-relationship with us, the power of prayer starts to become evident. God gives us the ability to release divine power into the events of this world through prayer, thus bringing about real change in the events of this world.

We have been trained to fill our lives with various people and priorities, setting us up to see our lives as central and everyone and everything else as components that we choose to add (or not) to our lives. The church, then, becomes another option on the list of priorities; even if it is a high priority, it becomes a piece of the whole in a way of living that has “me” as the whole. The biblical narrative runs the other way, with God and his mission in the world at the center and his people created to be important parts of the whole. That shift in our thinking has everything to do with us seeing and experiencing the Church — and our own lives — as God intends. And that kind of understanding is crucial in the context of a culture that is riddled with anxiety and fear. Knowing that we were created to be part of a Church that doesn’t settled into those patters of fear but steps into them with grace and hope is paramount for God’s people. In the coming weeks, we’ll explore in detail what the Church – universal and local – is and how it lives into its divine purpose in the world.

The story of the prodigal son is not a new one for most of us, but it’s a story that still needs to be told, received, and lived into.

As we press into our understanding of ourselves as the people of God and seek to live out that identity, it is helpful to look at Biblical examples of this struggle playing out in real life. The first chapter of Daniel provides such an opportunity for reflection. In this narrative account, we see forces and influences which threaten the identity and purpose of God’s people, and examples in the lives of Daniel of how a Godly identity and purpose can be maintained amid such temptations and opposition.

Much of our modern Christianity has emphasized individual salvation as what ultimately matters, seeing the Church as secondary and primarily as a tool for promoting and supporting our individual salvation. Yet Jesus and the writers of the NT seem to describe things the other way around: I don’t become a Christian and then decide to come into the Church for help with “my Christian life”; when I declare Jesus the Messiah, he saves me into the Church and begins to build the Church itself in and through my life.

The arc of Peter’s story from declaring Jesus as Messiah to denying him three times over to being restored by the resurrected Jesus is a window into the story of the Church itself – past, present, and future. Bumbling and broken, God has reclaimed and restored His people for the purpose of remembering and putting into practice the death and resurrection of Jesus. Ultimately, the Church becomes the geography in which God joins heaven and earth, fulfilling the prayer of Jesus that the kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.

In the context of our series on the Church, Rachael and Jason Jumonville share their story of growing from college students to late-20’s in our community as they prepare to move to Haiti.

When Jesus asks his followers who they say that he is, they hear the question with different ears than most of us, and they answer with a different perspective. They understood the gravity of declaring that Jesus was Messiah and King. When Peter made that confession, Jesus replied in a way that reveals the true identity, nature, and future of the Church.