Most people are familiar with The
Reformation, the historical event that nominally began on October 31,
1517 when Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to a church door. Even that
specific event, and the centuries of consequences, had a long
preceding history. Church history is not a simple, linear path.
Mostly because it involves real humans and a God that refuses to be
put in a box. In any case, it is generally accepted the Reformation
started with Luther, “ended” at some vague point in history, and
now today we have Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, with
something like 30,000 denominations world wide.
At the same time, there is a growing
sense of discontent concerning the church. There are repeated calls
for the church to “wake up” or “be revived” or get more
truth, better doctrine, more meaningful practice, better art, music,
and preaching, have more service projects, engage culture better,
conserve traditions and values, progress to get with the times, be
more innovative, get back to the book, etc.
Did the Reformation end? Is it over?
Is it finished? Can it ever even be finished?
We at Sun Ministries are convinced that
God is at work in America today, bringing reformation. He is, as He
has always done, calling people to Himself and His ways, to declare
His glory and minister to the world. This Reformation is not a
collection of right answers, nor a more refined process. It is
simply an act of surrender and obedience to the Maker of the universe
and choosing to live by His designs.
There isn't much mysterious about this
reformation, other than the Holy Spirit who moves like the wind
wherever He pleases. God has given us His Bible, and His Spirit, and
promised to be with us always to the very end. Along the way, man
has corrupted these things. He has invented ways of living out our
faith. In fact, the history of reformation is one of a repeating
pattern: a person or group of people start to see the corruption of
the time within the institutional church, go outside the church in
some manner and stress values that have been forgotten (sometimes to
the point of inventing new errors), are persecuted by the
established, corrupted church system, and either the group fizzles
out, or mutates over time to look a lot like the thing it left.
Division runs rampant.
We have a deep conviction that God has
called us to be involved in this reformation. We are not perfect,
nor do we have all the answers. But He has been teaching us, both as
we gather and pray, and as we lay down our lives and minister in a
real world. Dr. Terry Goodwin, our executive director, has written
about this in several books. The first one is “Disciple Driven
Church: The Coming Reformation.”
Here are some excerpts from the book:
“If
you want to see the instructions for what the church should look
like, you must first see the priorities of a Christ follower. Once
you see the instructed priorities of a Christ follower you can then
place the leadership structures of God over these priorities to help
individuals to fulfill their purposes in Christ. What are some of
these priorities? The greatest two are given by Jesus in Matthew
22:37-39 as the things on which all the Law and Prophets hang. You
must love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.
This is the first goal of any follower of Christ. Beyond these basics
we are instructed to go and make disciples, care for the widows and
orphans, care for the poor, and use our spiritual gifts to build up
the Body of Christ, which is the church. As you can see, the
ministry focus of the church was to be both the world and the Body of
Christ. Leadership was established to oversee the administration of
these ministries, protect the flock from false doctrine, and to equip
the saints for these works of service. Over the course of history,
men have grabbed more control and have moved the ministry to places
of more control. Many church leadership structures oversee and
control things that they are not instructed in scripture to control.”
“God
sees the church as a living declaration of His glory. It is designed
to live in the Holy Spirit, be defined by the Holy Spirit, and
declare God’s glory to the spirit realm. The purpose of the church
is to meet together to equip the saints for the works of service that
express God’s glory. If the people that gather as the church do not
possess the Holy Spirit, are not gifted with spiritual gifts by the
Holy Spirit, and do not understand what they are there to do through
the Holy Spirit, then how effective is the church? Only as we gather
the disciples together does the gathering declare to the spirit realm
that God is God. Only as we teach disciples to obey does the spirit
realm believe that we truly believe that God is God.”
“The
call for the disciple is clear. We are to obey Christ and join Him in
tearing down the works of the devil. We are to do what we see in
Isaiah 61:1-3. We begin by consecrating ourselves first...The part of
our life that we withhold from God is the seat of our future
troubles...Once we are free we will go and repair the devastated
places. We will repair the damage that Satan and his army have
accomplished. Through this, we will declare that God has dominion
over all the earth.”
“We
fall to our enemy when we lean on our own understanding. We fall to
our enemy when we fail to rest in the finished work of Christ.”
You
can download the book for free at our online store.
You can also purchase a physical copy if you'd like.
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