The church is a community of believers in Christ. The only reason we can congregate in the church and be united as one is Jesus Christ, The community in Christ follows Jesus. The community driven not by my feelings nor my thoughts but by the will of Jesus and His heart is the community in Christ. We should not seek ‘our own good’ but the ‘good of Jesus’. Jesus clearly gave His disciples the direction they needed to follow.
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)
The perfection of church is not attainable through outwardly visible success. Actually even more than that, a church should not aim for such superficial perfection. As the church responds to its mission of ‘leading souls to salvation, and make disciples’, spiritually immature christians with a weak relationship with God are bound to be found. Those who are spiritually immature and weak are in the stage of spiritual growth where ‘my self and my need’ matters the most. On this stage, they desire to receive more attention, love and recognition. So the church should ‘accept and tolerate such individuals’.
However such acceptance should have its terms:it is not to be confused with the ultimate mission of the church. We should not forget that the purpose of the church's existence is to ‘make disciples’ who mirrors Jesus. And we cannot echo Jesus unless our view of faith changes from “self centered faith’ to ‘Jesus centered faith’. Jesus continuously struggled with His disciples because of this issue as well. Directly or indirectly, Jesus repeatedly told His disciples about this.
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3-4)
However, even after many years of knowing Jesus if someone is still in that spiritually immature state, it is heart-breaking. If such people are promoted to become key decision makers for the church solely based on their seniority and knowledge, the church will soon lose its spiritual power and vitality. The church will lose its saltiness and be trampled by men. Many are hurt by bitterness and resentment caused by churches today because churches stopped struggling with this problem.
The house church provides a path to win this struggle: it is being a Mokja and Mokyeo. This is because to become a true Mokja Mokyeo, you must go through the cycle of denying yourself. Walking on such a path, you grow in faith from ‘self’-centered to ‘Jesus’-centered. However, you shouldn’t be too proud of being Mokja/Mokyeo because being conceited is the worst form of humility. So those who are being raised Mokja/Mokyeo should at minimum know the direction that leads to Jesus and be ready to humble themselves before God.
Self-centeredness has many faces. Sometimes it may be disguised as being holy or being kind. I believe that struggling to discern our true self behind these many faces is the key battle that brings victory to our church and our spiritual life. If you become a Mokja/Mokyeo, you will surely run into this path where you come face to face with many parts of yourself. If your situation does not allow you to become Mokja/Mokyeo, let’s pray that we could be Mokja/Mokyeo like Mokwon (Mokjang’s member). I will also continue this fight in our church as well.
Following the shepherd…
Pastor Jiwon Choi