AUTHOR: Robin Dugall DATE: 11:14:00 AM ----- BODY:

At my Community Group meeting last night and in my Romans/Galatians course at Azusa Pacific University, I threw out the question, "if all you had was the Old Testament and New Testament...if all you knew was the Jesus challenged you to love each other and your neighbor as yourself, what kind of 'ekklesia' would you put together that would honor God?" You see, we have 2000 years of social construct in what it means to be "church". Ask any person on the street to describe "church" and you'll get essentially answers like "buildings, pastors, programs, televangelists, etc." What if we had a complete deconstruction of what it means to be "church"? First of all, realize that "ekklesia" (the word commonly translated church) was never meant in its original useage to be associated with a religious institution. It meant a gathering of people...not a building, not a purpose statement, not a budget...a gathering. In addition, the Romans used "ekklesia" to mean those cities or towns where altars were constructed to honor the Emperor. In fact, those towns would await the "parousia" (the return of the Emperor) as his way of honoring or blessing their ekklesia. Early Christ-followers, again, wrestled a purposely good word that meant something very specific to the people at that time. It wasn't until the first English translations that the word ekklesia was translated "church"...and that was in the 17th century after the "Church" had 17 centuries to operationally define it. By the time any reader read the word, "church" they immediately thought of what the church had become. What if ekklesia could be reimagined given our knowledge and commitment to building God-honoring community? What if ekklesia was reconstructed outside of all the assumptions we have come to over centuries about what makes a church what it is? More to come later...for now, give that some thought! Let's explore ekklesia! How do we build faithful communities? How do we gather together to honor Jesus and seek to incarnate the reality of the Kingdom to our world without falling into the institutional trappings that have plagued Churchianity for centuries?

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