Another great quote from Frank Viola’s new book, God’s Ultimate Passion:
One of the great problems in the Christian faith today, I believe, is that we Christians are taught to be salt and light in the world as individuals. We are exhorted as individuals to change the world for Christ. We are motivated as individuals to be agents of God’s Kingdom. “Church” has been redefined as the place you attend to be educated and motivated to go out and live a better individual Christian life. Sadly, the individual emphasis in contemporary Christianity has overwhelmed and eclipsed God’s central purpose for His people which is corporate. To compound the trouble, we have been handed individualistic lenses by which to read, study, and interpret everything in the Bible.
Please observe that it is not the individual Christian who is the fullness of Christ [see Eph. 1:22-23]. It is the church—the ekklesia. Also observe that the vast majority of the Bible was written to a people, not an individual. That includes your New Testament, the bulk of which was written to Christian communities.
Our new species lives, works, and behaves in community. We are a colony together. Thus, the great need of the hour is for Christians to begin learning how to gather together and embody Christ in a shared-life community. The Christian life is not about you or me. It’s about us. And that is the church. ((Frank Viola, God’s Ultimate Passion (Gainesville, FL: Present Testimony Ministries, 2006), 246))
Ordering the book in the morning.