living from Eternity

Tag: Ekklesia

  • Ekklesia Series / Kingdom vs Church

    Ekklesia Series / Kingdom vs Church

    In my last post, I asked the question about the role or relevance of Ephesians 4 ministries in the context of Ekklesia and the fresh understanding that Father is releasing around it in the world today. In my next two posts, I want to try and delve into the mindset that I believe God is wanting to emerge as He positions His Ekklesia to start fulfilling its mandate and purpose.

    I am going to set out a couple of points I believe highlight the difference between where are we are today and where we need to get to in terms of Ephesian 4 ministries letting God’s people go so we can impact the mountains or gates of culture.

    To start off, I want to first define two phrases that I will use during the course of this post: Kingdom Leader and Church Leader.

    When I refer to a Kingdom leader, I am referring to a mindset or leader that reflects an understanding of how the Ekklesia bring and manifest what Jesus called the Kingdom of God/Heaven. It reflects or demonstrates an understanding that in ruling or governing in the gates of culture, the Ekklesia outworks the heavenly kingdom into the spheres of culture and nations.

    When I refer to a Church leader I am referring to a mindset or leader that reflects an understanding of the Church and its structures in the present day. It reflects the status quo of many of the Ephesians 4 ministers today.

    Let’s take a look at some of the contrasts:

    A Kingdom leader interprets Matthew 28:19-20 as referring to the discipleship of all nations in all the gates of culture and influence whereas a Church leader believes it only refers or relates only to individual ethnic people.

    As we wake up to a fresh understanding of Ekklesia many are viewing the command to go into all the world and preach and make disciples as being applicable to not only individuals but world systems and gates of culture that exist within nations.

    A Kingdom leader teaches and nurtures world-changing leaders who serve communities and gates of culture. Church leaders typically try to raise up leaders to serve in the programs, meetings and functions of the local church.

    Only about 2% to 3% of churchgoers are called to function within the church gate. Kingdom leaders recognise this and place an emphasis on equipping the whole body for the work of the individually assigned ministry, irrespective of the sphere.

    A Kingdom leader works with God’s common and saving grace. Church leaders understand and work with God’s saving grace only.

    There is a grace that has been poured out to all humanity so that the world can function. In Romans 13:1-7 civic leaders are called God’s ministers. If God calls unredeemed leaders His ministers, then a kingdom mindset allows leaders to partner with civic (political, community, policing, educational institutions etc.) leaders, even if they are not in total agreement when it comes to faith.

    Church leaders tend to only work with those that agree to their core religious beliefs, values and vision.

    A Kingdom leader encourages a biblical worldview that encompasses all of life and all of the cultural gates. Church leaders tend to regard only those activities that appear to be “spiritual” as important.

    Kingdom perspective says the earth is the Lord’s (Psalm 24). It recognises that creation and the material world according to God are good (Genesis). Thus the material world is also sacred and something to be cultivated, tended to, honoured and enjoyed!

    Church leaders usually place a greater importance and focus on “spiritual” things like prayer, healing, gifts of the spirit etc. However, these “spiritual” things are only really effective when tied into God’s redemptive plan for creation (Rom 8).

    A Kingdom leader strives and works towards establishing Christ in individuals, systems and the different gates of culture. A Church leader strives to produce individual Christians.

    A kingdom perspective seeks to intertwine God’s principles into every fabric of culture and gates of a city and nation so that the base laws and culture of a nation are built upon Godly principles.

    A church mindset is not overly concerned with governments and economics etc. but rather with adding new converts and building up the local church. Unfortunately, this just perpetuates the ungodly humanistic systems that govern today.

    A Kingdom leader strives to turn the world upside down. A Church leader focuses on restructuring and building local churches.

    Acts 17 describes the Apostles as “those who turned the world upside down had come” when they entered a community. The kingdom mindset impacts every aspect of our local communities, cities and nations. The church mindset is concerned with what happens with the community that gathers every Sunday.

    A Kingdom leader articulates Christ as Lord over every culture and every aspect of culture. Church leaders present Christ as only Head of the Church.

    Kingdom leaders recognise Christ as head of every secular government, authority and kingdom and as a result, seek to bring this authority to bear in every possible situation, be it political, financial or other. This encourages responsibility on the Ekklesia to participate and influence every aspect of life.

    A church mindset tends to preach Christ as head of the church and neglects to see Jesus’ function as King over all the world, redeemed and unredeemed.

    A Kingdom leader looks to shepherd whole communities, cities, systems and gates. Church leaders tend to shepherd only local congregations or specific streams of congregations.

    A Kingdom leader recognises they may be called to communities and different gates, not only to local churches. Hence they see themselves as spiritual leaders of regions, systems and gates. Church leaders tend to understand commitment in the context of support for the local church programs and outreaches.

    I have another five or six differences that I will write about next time but I trust the above contrasts help in framing some of the mindset that I believe the Lord is asking Ephesians 4 ministers and indeed every “church” member to start developing during this epoch moment.

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  • Ekklesia Series / Bridging the realms

    Ekklesia Series / Bridging the realms

    I ended my last post indicating that we have to connect with the government of God in order to fully understand the role of the Ekklesia in the earth today. In this post, I want to explore God’s government and in the process hopefully shed light on the functioning of the Ekklesia in everyday life.

    To recap; Jesus could have used any word in Matt 16:18 to describe how His kingdom was going to come, but He chose a word associated with a form of government that was prevalent in His day, “Ekklesia“. I know that this might not sit well with many readers of this post, but the kingdom of God is governmental in nature, not religious.

    With that in mind, let’s look at the words of Jesus in Matt 4:17 “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”. Jesus was, in essence, saying that the reason for people to repent was not because they had sinned but rather because of His right and authority to rule or govern over individual lives, over cities and over our nations was coming and had indeed come with the advent of His kingdom. Jesus brought with Him, His government!

    And it is this government and governing principle that He said He would build in Matthew 16:18. The Passion translates it this way “I give you the name Peter, a stone. And this truth of who I am will be the bedrock foundation on which I will build my church-my legislative assembly“. What an amazing translation! Let’s open this up a bit.

    Firstly, the truth of who Christ is will be the bedrock or foundation for the Ekklesia or the government of Christ to function effectively in the earth. It is not the church activities that we religiously engage in, or the meetings that we attend or even the tightly held doctrines that we hold dear that empowers the Ekklesia to take the gates; it is who Christ is and specifically, who Christ is in us that allows the realm of heaven to effect change on the earth.

    In Colossians 1:27, we are told that “…Christ in us is the hope of Glory”. One could make many points about this scripture, but I want to explore it from the original intent that God had for mankind when were made in Genesis. When God made mankind, He said “let us make man (and by implication woman) in our image”. Mankind was given something of the nature of God that didn’t just reflect who God was but actually mirrored it.

    This thought that we contain the image of God is a whole series on it’s own, but for the focus of this post I want to draw out the following: one of the characteristics of God is that He is not constrained to either Heaven or Earth or to the unseen and seen realm. God is both connected to Heaven and to Earth and functions within both realms. This is important in understanding that when He created us, we were created as creatures who being in His likeness, bridge and function from both the seen and unseen realms.

    Written in another way, we are created to and supposed to bridge both the heavenly and earthly realms in our daily lives. Man was never created to go to heaven, but rather to live from heaven and to allow this to fashion the earth and what we see in it today.

    This was God’s original intent for us; let the unseen create and fashion what is in the seen.

    Hebrews 11:1 sheds light on this principle by stating, “…so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible”. In other words, what is seen in the visible was made from things that are not visible. The unseen fashions the seen!

    Secondly, the heavenly or unseen legislative assembly is where the government of God originates from. The Ekklesia lives and operates from this place of collective legislation. The authority of this assembly is available to us as sons and daughters and is to be released in our lives on earth.

    It is my observation that as individuals, families, cities and nations, we have (amongst many others) the following ways in which God releases His government through us to affect the present and seen realm in a practical way;

    1. Desires
    2. Calling‘s
    3. Anointing’s
    4. Cultural understandings
    5. Inheritance ‘s
    6. Relationships,
    7. Spiritual laws
    8. Answered prayers
    9. Gifts and talents

    Our role as the Ekklesia is to allow the Christ within us to tap into each of the above and then be obedient in the practical steps that the Holy Spirit leads us in.

    Some questions we could be asking ourselves around the above could include; What do you desire? What relationships do you have that you know is not because of your charming personality or warm demeanour? Have you ever noticed that you have more success in terms of answered prayer with a specific prayer topic than others? Do you just have a knack to understand business or to raise finances? Are children drawn to you or you to them? Do you find you just have to open the bible and you understand (while the rest of us have to read and read and just for good measure, read a passage again to even begin to understand!) or maybe the same with a business book. Do you get angry and wish you had a say when you see corruption or inept policy by the politicians ruling your nation?

    The answer to these questions (and others like them) could highlight how God wants to position you to participate in His Ekklesia.

    I will expand on this in the next post but I want to finish off with the following thoughts; for some to engage in the legislative assembly might mean interceding every day for a nation, a person, a family; for another the engagement may be to lead a country as the President; for another it might be to lead a community of believers as a shepherd; for another it might be to lead your family; for another to educate and teach; for another to create and start businesses; for another to draw and create.

    There are different gifts, desires, calls, understandings, inheritance’s, relationships, prayers and anointing’s amongst us and as we allow the Christ within us to tap into them, we begin to flow together in the Legislative Authority that resides within His Ekklesia.

    Till next time.

    Ant