The Changing Church Paradigm

The Supernatural Church is You!

                                   By John Arnott

More and more we hear the term “church without walls,” but what does this mean? While it can mean sending teams from a local church outside the church’s walls to minister in homes and in the marketplace, I believe it is much more than that. If we are going to reach this world for Jesus, we need a completely new model of “doing church.” I don’t know why we can’t have “church” in homes, offices, schools, coffee shops, or even outside for that matter. Why can’t we have church meetings that are facilitated by an army of non-professional yet anointed Christians, and have them meet whenever and wherever it works for them?

Maybe we need to take a hard look at what has happened to the church in the last 2,000 years and see how we can return to Jesus’ model of “doing church.” Jesus said, “Where two or three meet together, there am I in the midst.” The word “church” in Greek is the word ekklesia meaning “called out ones.”

In Matthew 16:18, Christ said to Peter, “You are Peter (Greek word petros, meaning “little rock”), and on this rock (Greek word petra, meaning “big rock,” which is the revelation that Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One) I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Jesus is building His Kingdom of “called out ones” based on the solid foundation of His powerful anointing as the Messiah.

This is very reassuring and makes me feel a whole lot more comfortable than supposing that His church is built upon a person or group of people and their organization. It is built upon all that Jesus is: His person, His character, His authority, His values, His power, His ministry and His loving heart.

When the Church was Supernatural

In spite of man’s attempts to organize and institutionalize the church, it has thrived through the centuries because Jesus’ eternal life is in its people. I believe the church fulfilled the mission of Jesus better when it was unorganized, decentralized and even persecuted. Back then it depended more upon the foundation of Jesus as the Anointed One than on structure, and it was a supernatural church!

The early church advanced at an unbelievable speed. Within approximately 200 years of Jesus’ resurrection, the known world was essentially converted to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The early church was empowered by Jesus, the resurrected Son of God who delegated His love and power to every Christian in the person of the Holy Spirit (John 14:12).

But once Christianity became acceptable and developed political status, a man-made hierarchy developed and religious form began to replace its dynamic, supernatural life.

The Expanding Worldwide Body of Christ

Around the world today, our evangelical faith is experiencing a massive revival. Christianity is making amazing gains all over the world.

What is happening? It is His church without walls, without central government, moving in His authority and power to see supernatural miracles and conversions happening at an unprecedented rate. Isn’t it interesting that the weaker we are in terms of finances, political power, central government or ability to move forward through self effort, the more we rely on Him, the true source of Kingdom power and advancement?

It is no secret that the church in developing nations is advancing rapidly. The Lord is filling the earth with the knowledge of His glory (Habakkuk 2:14). But in North America and Europe (the historical strongholds of the faith), many people have been inoculated against the church because they have seen the sins and the failures that arise when the church turns into an institutionalized political system, and they have rejected that.

What About Us?

Here in Toronto, we are a comparatively small movement without denominational organization and backing, yet over four million people have experienced revival here because their hunger for God has superseded the need to feel safe within the parameters of a well-known denomination.

Why is this? Hungry people understand that it is not the structure or the organization that causes the growth and advancement of the Kingdom, but it is in a personal relationship with the living Jesus Christ, the true Rock of Ages.

So what is every Christian’s role? To disciple and equip others to be Christians, to be partakers in His anointing. One of my favorite scriptures is John 14:12. “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” This is the real church He intended, His church, His body of called out ones, moving in His anointing and power. And indeed, this is the phenomenon that is now sweeping the world.

So how does this work then? Seemingly, the Holy Spirit has no problem coordinating hundreds and thousands of different individuals and congregations for His eternal purposes. Things really do work much better when Jesus Himself is the head. Once we understand that there is not to be only one or two who represent Christ as His vicars on earth, but in fact, every believer is to be His representative, we will each more clearly demonstrate Jesus to a needy world.

We are a Kingdom of kings and priests. We relate directly to the King of kings and Lord of lords. We pray directly to Him. We hear His voice directly to us and are each His divinely appointed ambassadors. This is not to say that there are not offices in the local churches of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. However, these are not titles, but functions. These are servant leaders who equip others to also become anointed ones. How often we have interpreted these ministries to be hierarchical positions. And notice how the more we grow with political and financial power, the less dependent we become on Him.

While we are becoming more dependent on Him, we must learn to live as peaceably as we can with the diversity of movements and denominations that we now have in the body of Christ. But we must also be free to run with that fresh “new thing” that God is saying to us, without first having to change the traditional paradigms of staid leaders.

In China every day, it is estimated that thirty thousand new believers are added to the church. How is this possible? Because the church is underground and decentralized, the few cannot tell the many what to do. I recently heard a report of a young Chinese girl, seventeen years of age, who pastors a church of 20,000 people. There is no central system to tell her she cannot because she is female or too young, or not trained well enough, so she simply obeys the direction of the Holy Spirit who brings her instructions from Christ the head.

Time for a Reality Check

It is time for those of us who live in the West to take a reality check. Church as we know it is not really working here. Many of the so-called “success stories” of church growth are merely transfer growth. We need some new models for having church which allow ordinary “lay people” to easily and quickly get involved in ministry.

Somehow the point of entry into ministry has become too difficult throughout the centuries. It is so different from the way Jesus equipped His followers. He first took twelve, and then 70 willing men and women, trained them enough in one year to start sending them out into the surrounding territory to spread the news of the Kingdom of Heaven. They ministered very effectively and came back rejoicing that many healings were taking place, and even demons were subject to them (Luke 10). After one to two years of equipping, those fishermen and tax collectors who were considered uneducated and untrained, began changing their world with the power of God.

This is what is changing Africa, China and Latin America today. In Mozambique, Africa, under Rolland and Heidi Baker’s ministry, relatively new converts eagerly receive a minimal amount of training and are then sent out to plant churches. And it is working. They have planted over 6,000 churches in a four-year period of time. I suppose someone forgot to tell Heidi that women can’t be in the ministry!

The church’s finest hour is upon us. Don’t disqualify yourself any more. Stop listening to people telling you that you can’t. Jesus is saying you can, and I am telling you that you can. Follow your desire as a “little anointed one” who carries Jesus’ love and power and just go for it. Just do it!

John Arnott, with his wife Carol, are the senior pastors at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship (TACF). They live in Toronto and travel extensively while continuing to pastor TACF. John is also the chief editor of Spread the Fire magazine.

www.tacf.org