Session five draws on the fifth chapter of the book Making Sense of God’s Love: Atonement and Redemption. So far, we have looked at Atonement and Redemption as it is worked out in the life of the person, but to be a Christian is to belong to what we call the Body of Christ, the Church. In this session we’ll be thinking about what it means to be a Church that lives out this redemptive love, what its true purpose is in the world and what its own redemptive work consists of.

Opening Conversation

Take a few minutes to think about yourselves as a group. Have you come to know each other better because of these sessions? Have you discovered more common ground in things that relate to the topics we have been discussing? Or have the discussions revealed cracks and even led to disputes? Have these been resolved? In today’s session we’ll be thinking about the life of the Church which this group is, in a sense, mirroring, so feel free to relate the topics directly to yourselves, your own churches or any situation known to you.

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Bible readings

John 13:34-35

34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Matthew 16:13-19

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter,[a] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[b] will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[c] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[d] loosed in heaven.”

Galatians 3:26-29

26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Key Points

• If the Church is a spiritual body, this would imply that its life must witness to the way it participates in the life of God and in the vibrant dynamic nature of God’s Spirit.
• Holding on to party preferences and beliefs which exclude people from a church suggests that we do not altogether trust God. It also suggests that we do not believe God to be completely free.

• The Church is called to be prophetic by bearing witness in its life to the sacrificial love of God shown to us in the person of Jesus.

Discussion Points

The Church as a spiritual body

• Do you think the Church is still relevant for people today? If not, what has replaced it?
• If being a Christian is not a matter of going to church, how will the Church of the future look? What are the ideas or events that will change it in the long term? Are these changes already happening in your own church community?
• What might it mean for the Church to exist in the world but not to be of the world?
• The spiritual writer and theologian, Maggie Ross, says, in one of her books, that when we hear Jesus speak of ‘the world’, especially in relation to the life of Christian community, we should replace it with the word ‘system’ or, perhaps, ‘organisation’. Would you agree?
• Do you think that managerialism is the modern idolatry?

The Prophetic Church

• We re-work our faith within the circumstances of particular social, political and ethnic environments. Does this apply to your local church? In what ways? If not, how could your church become more outwardly focused?
• Are there ways in which your church could be more open to the possibilities of healing and forgiveness, if not in the church itself, then in your local community?