A Treatise on Church Growth

Though sitting forlorn, I have proclaimed the highest visions.


The root of many problems facing the "Church" today is the fact that the Church has great difficulty accepting (understanding?) what and who the Church is in the Mind of Christ. We have trouble believing, and thus acting on our belief, the fact that the Church is a spiritual entity (vessel) created soveriegnly by God to be His companion forever, knowing no man-made boundaries or borders, existing outside the realm of the natural and separate and unique from the world (world system). This is an mportant point because ideally the Church is not of this world, worldly patterns of thought and action; the Church is a soveriegn creation of God, ruled, ordered and administrated solely by God through His Holy Spirit.
He raises up whom He wills to be Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Teachers and Pastors but these do not replace the unique relationship God has with His Church. God is a Spirit. His Church is spiritual, therefore any attempts to rule or control her through natural, or carnal methods, including man's intellect (witness: Solomon), must, indeed will fail, just as surely as they would fail if we tried to rule over God himself. It simply cannot be done. What can be done is that we can know Him. This knowing Him is always, from our perspective, done from a woman's view and position, naturally, since we are the weaker vessel in our relationship with God. We must submit to Him; as every wife must submit to her husband. Only in this continued position of vulnerablility can intimacy truly be known and maintained. A woman is no more vulnerable than when she becomes one with her husband - at this moment, he can harm her or bless her. She must give herself to him completely to know the fulness of the blessing. And so, the Church.
Church leadership is nothng more, nothing less, than husbandmen, attendants to the Bride, fathers to the children, midwives to the newborns, in short, whatever it takes to usher people to a place of maturity, into this intimate relationship with The Lord that he so desires with each of us, then help them grow in intimacy. Maturity is the final goal of all ministry to the Bride. I truly believe when the Bride reaches the maturity of a Proverbs 31 woman (notice the age - 31), Jesus will come bursting out of the heavens with such a passionate, holy love for her that nothing in heaven or on earth will be able to hold him back from the final glorious union of Jesus and his bride! Wedding vows are found throughout the Bible. "I will never leave you or forsake you" is just one example.

To be continued...