Where

do we begin the story of the church? Bible teachers have wrestled

with that question for centuries. Volumes have been written in

attempts to provide an answer.

This

month Christians will commemorate Ascension Day and Pentecost as key

dates in the development of the early church. In some ways, we can

look at those events as “beginning” dates of the church, but then

we would miss some of the other beginnings that help us understand

the ministry of Jesus as well as those special days.

I

believe we can best understand the church by remembering God’s

original design. From the beginning of creation, God was linking

himself to us and our world. God was making room for us. He was

preparing in all his creativity a setting by which people, made in

his image, could work, play, worship, and rest in his presence.

When

we know God’s original design for this world, we have a deeper

understanding that the church is part of his renewal of all things by

developing a community in which God wants to show what real love

looks like.

Though

all of us human beings “have sinned and fall short of the glory of

God” (Romans 3:23), we have been made in his image for God’s

purposes, and he will never let us go.