Church Reimagined: Body of Christ
Downtown Campus Pastor
The Church is the body of Christ—his presence and ministry on earth. While we all have diverse gifts, we are united through and humbled by the greater mission God has given us. May our imaginations be captivated by this mission as we seek to be the kind of Church Jesus died to create.
Study Questions
The Church is the body of Christ—his presence and ministry on earth. While we all have diverse gifts, we are united through and humbled by the greater mission God has given us. May our imaginations be captivated by this mission as we seek to be the kind of Church Jesus died to create.Application
If you come from a church background, consider the ideas of “weak church” and “wounded church.” Which category do you fall into? How do you need to move forward from your past and engage the church in healthy ways?
Paul exhorts the believers at Ephesus to be humble. What does it look like for us to be a humble church? How can humility free us from our culture’s focus on success and individual importance?
As the body of Christ, we are united—yet, God gives us diverse gifts. Do you know what your gifts are? How can you live in such a way that your gifts are being discovered and used to infuse life into the church?
Speaking the truth in love should be part of our church culture. Has anyone ever spoken a difficult truth to you in a loving way? How did that impact you? How can you help build this culture in our church?
Key Points
Jesus died for the church—not an individual Christian experience. As believers, we need to engage the local church actively and understand that we are part of a mission much bigger than ourselves.
God calls us to be a humble church. We must orient our hearts around the truth that there is a God and we are not him.
As Jesus’ body, the church is his presence and ministry on earth. And while we all have different roles and gifts, we are bound and united in Christ.
When we become believers, God deposits a form of his grace into our lives that is designed to overflow into the lives of others.
Being an active part of the church means giving, serving, and being in biblical community. This is how we discover our gifts and grow in spiritual maturity.
Speaking the truth in love is a critical part of how we mature as believers, and it should be a compelling part of our church culture.
One of God’s purposes for the church is to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers of the world.