I have been a church planter for 15 years, the last 12 years planting churches which meet in homes. Before that I had planted and pastored a larger type of church which had grown through conversions of the lost. In many cases we were working amongst inner city people. I was convinced early on, and this has only been reinforced in all the years since, that the ministry of transformation (Cf. 2 Cor. Chapters 3 and 4) is an essential and basic ministry necessary for establishing and sustaining healthy Christian communities (churches).
Church planting calls people to walk in community with their God. An important task of pastoring is teaching people how to love one another in the context of Christian community. The reason that this is so essential is due to the nature of sin. God created man as a community being. God created man in the image of the triune being. “Let us make man in Our image.” Gen. 1:26. And then He made man male and female. Man was created in the corporate image of God and to be a corporate being. Man will only find his completion in community--with God and his fellow man. This was his experience in the garden. This relationship is pictured below:
When man sinned, immediately there was fragmentation in that community. Adam hid himself from Eve as well as from God (Gen. 3:7f, compare 2:25). One of the saddest verses of the scripture is Gen. 3:9 where we see God seeking out the fellowship He so desired with Adam only to find Adam missing. But the alienation doesn’t end here, for when Adam is confronted wiht his sin, he blames God as well as Eve. Eve, when confronted, shifts the blame to the serpent whom God had created.
So here, very early in the history of man we see that sin fragments community. In Genesis 4 the spiral of destruction which sin causes in relationship reaches a low when Cain kills Abel. And so we see in the present world the destructive spiral that sin has on relationships; this sin which Satan introduced to the human family to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:9) the plan God had for man--a plan to live in harmony and loving community. God’s plan was to create man for fellowship with himself and with one another. The devil’s plan was to destroy this! And the result is that man carries within himself the seeds of his own destruction. Man is now born a sinner and our fragmented world is a reflection of that.
But Jesus came to undo the deeds of the devil. He especially came to restore in us the ability to love (Cf. John 13:34f,). In John 17:9-36 Jesus clearly has in mind the establishment of community based on love. Love sustains and strengthens community. Since the fall all of mankind has been plunged into sin, and the consequences are obvious, especially when viewing the fragmentation of relationships in our world. Salvation is designed to deal with the sin issue. Jesus came to save us “from our sins”, not in our sins. (Mt. 1:21). Jesus plan was to save a people for God who would be God’s own people, reflecting the very nature of the triune God--a God who has existed in community since before the foundation of the world.
But we find that man tends to revert to old patterns and thus, even after radical conversion, believers tend to drift back into old ways of handling problems. This leads to sin and resulting fragmentation of Christian community. All one has to do is look at the sad state of affairs in most churches to realize that there is more fragmentation from sin than unity arising out of love. This book is written to pastors and church planters who want to build Christian community which will stand against Satan and his attacks to take captive believers and wreck their communities.
We will be relying heavily on the Apostle Paul’s theology (Romans 5-8) and methodology of transformation. Of course no transformation of people’s lives can occur without the activity of the Holy Spirit. Indeed the Spirit’s main task in saving people is to transform their lives into ones that are Holy and reflective of their Savior. But Paul worked with the Holy Spirit especially using the Word (Col. 1:24-29). And we are going to look in detail at the way Paul engaged in this ministry.
There is no question that Paul saw transformation as an essential aspect of his calling as an evangelist and church planter. In Acts 26:12-20 Paul relates to Agrippa his testimony of Jesus’ call to him.
“I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins.....I kept declaring...that they should repent and turn to God performing deeds appropriate to repentance.”
He clearly expected those who came to faith to have a radically different life in the Kingdom compared to their lives before meeting Jesus--just as his life had radically changed! He outlines in this passage a pattern of experience that he clearly expected for those who would follow Jesus as disciples. In vs. 18 he expected that their eyes would be opened (like his were). They would then repent, turn from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God. They would receive forgiveness of sins, and then in vs. 20, perform deeds in keeping with repentance. None of these things were optional, they were all linked together. This was the new life in the Kingdom that Paul expected for those which would respond to the Gospel.
Clearly Paul’s message was not merely having ones sins forgiven, but rather receiving Revelation from God (opening their eyes), Repenting of walking in darkness , and making the necessary changes to walk in the light. Paul did not see this as optional for a few super-saints or the clergy, but for every believer. I use the following triangle throughout this book to show the experience of the saint from Acts 26:18-20. This will be explained in detail in the ensuing chapters.
Paul realized that he was an active agent cooperating with the Holy Spirit in this activity in the lives of believers. He did not expect this experience to “just happen”. He said that Jesus had sent him to do this (of course with the agency of the Holy Spirit. But it is interesting how Paul puts it in this passage.). So Paul saw himself, and, I believe, other leaders as essential to see this transformation occur. I believe he gives the details of his and other leaders responsibility in the task of renewal in 2 Tim. 3:16,17.
“All scripture is...profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”
Paul clearly sees the Word as essential in this task. But the fact that others are involved shows what I think is an important concept...That transformation occurs in community. I have placed the different uses of the word around the Cycle of Renewal below. From this we can see what ought to be the Experience of the Disciple and the Responsibility of the Community in the ministry of transformation. The rest of this book unpacks this in detail.
