“No man builds the church but Christ alone. Whoever is minded to build the church is surely well on the way to destroying it, for he will build a temple to idols without wishing or knowing….We must proclaim–He builds. We must pray to Him that He may build. We do not know His plan. We cannot see whether He is building or pulling down. It may be that the times, which by human standards are times of collapse, are, for him, the great times of construction.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
EXCELLENT JON! SO TRUE!!
ReplyDeleteIt troubles me that we are so focused on doing the "Building" of the Church! We are all about Packaging and Promoting our Organization / Congregation / Denomination / Persuasion.... that we often are totally oblivious to what God wants to do!
When "WE" build the church... Package the Church... (as Bonhoeffer says) we destroy it.. for it is then "man made" (with all the flaws that involves) and bears the mark of our human infirmity! (our "Blind Spots"; "Hang-ups"; and "Baggage")
The Church HE Builds and Packages... is PERFECT!