We, the church, are the Bride of Christ. What I must remember is that the church is not my ‘bride’, it is not an extension of me.
When I interact with the church, I can interact with it in two ways:
- as individuals to whom I am accountable and am in relationship with.
- as an entity.
I suspect that I can only treat it as an entity when I bring prophecy to the church. Whilst I can bring my own ‘chat’ to individuals with whom I am in relationship, if I bring comments to the church surely there is much more of an onus on me to bring God’s word, to bring prophecy?
Most of our communication is within our tightly knit groups. Only some is ‘broadcast’. When we ‘broadcast’, both the purpose and responsibility is different. When we broadcast we are not seeking one to one discipleship, encouragement or accountability, we are surely bringing an edifying message of God to the church?
Not sure if I agree with your last paragraph, should there be any difference with what is said one-to a few than what you term ‘Broadcast’? You make it sound as though it is more important to broadcast a message. Depending what you class as “church” I don’t nessesarily believe that God requires an individual to “broadcast” to speak to his church.
Hi ARH,
No, on the whole I think that communication in the small groups and one on one is more important – it’s where we make a difference on a personal level which is very important. Personally I very rarely speak in/to a larger group.
I agree, for most of us God doesn’t usually require us to “broadcast” to speak to his church. Much of what being church is, is on a smaller more personal level.
However, I do feel that there is a difference between what we may say to an individual or a small group, where we can be more sensitive to personal needs, than what we say to a larger group.