Church Without Walls-Moving Beyond Traditional Boundaries

in Ministry and Pastoral Care Books

Jim Petersen

ISBN 08910 96639

WHATS WRONG WITH THE POPULAR DEFINITION OF CHURCH?
It puts too many essential functions of the body outside the definition, and therefore outside the church. By habit, church has come to mean a place—a place where we congregate, a place where we build up believers. As long as thats our whole understanding of church, we miss one of our primary functions as the people of God: being out in the world for the sake of unbelievers.
The sad reality is that going to the lost and living Christlike lives among them is not in our ecclesiology, says Jim Petersen. Throughout its history, the church has pushed for institutionalism in an effort to preserve the purity of the gospel. As a result, weve evolved into congregations meeting inside the confines of a building—rather than vital communities living among the lost.
In Church Without Walls, Petersen offers an exciting definition of the church that pushes beyond the too-small boundaries weve inherited from the past. First-century Christians had to sort out Jesus from Judaism in order to become a people for all nations. Today, we have to sort out Jesus from our religious traditions in order to make Him available to our nation. Thats the challenge we face: Will we be the church without walls, communicating a gospel free of cultural trappings? Or will we continue to reproduce our forms and structures, hiding the essence of the gospel within?

Category: Ministry and Pastoral Care Books Added: 14/09/2006

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