The Church -- Think Universal, Act Particular...

The Church exists as two concepts: there is The Church, which is the catholic expression of faith and vision �" the Church in its entirety and whole self �" and there is the particular church, which is the local, or partial, expression of the catholic Church. The use of the term “catholic” is not “Roman Catholic” or “Eastern Catholic” or even “Old Catholic” or any other type of “Catholic Church”; the term, as noted by the lower-case “c” is catholic in the true meaning of the word �" kata holos “according to the whole” or “the Church everywhere” or “the whole Church.” The term was first applied against those who taught heretical ideas as a means of showing them thier error. The bishops essentially would say “You say this, but the church everywhere else (kata holos) says that; therefore, if everywhere and everyone else in the church say that, and you say this, why do you believe that you are the one who is correct?”

So, there is The Church, which is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church �" the Church as a whole �" and there is the particular church, which is an expression of  the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church in a fixed place and time. The particular church can be a denominational expression, but more importantly, it can be, and probably should be, expressed in the local congregation or parish.

It is not practical for the whole Church to meet together, so the Church meets in smaller, local expressions of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. It is also impractical for the whole Church to act in one concerted effort in one place, but the Church acts in many places at once in local expressions of the one Church. So the Church is sort of the concept, and the particular church is the practice; the Church is the soul and the particular church is the body; the Church is the ideal and the particular church is the practical manifestation of that ideal; the Church is the message and the particular church is the ministry.

The ministry of The Church is local; therefore, The Church is encountered as the particular church. This is not some example theological semantics, but a practical expression: the particular church is where people encounter The Church; therefore, The Church must always present its universal vision in a manner consistent with local norms, customs, and expressions.

The Church has the universal vision of feeding the poor, ending poverty, clothing the naked, healing the sick, preaching good news to the poor, and so on. The Church does this through the particular church; therefore, The Church feeds the hungry of the world by feeding the hungry of the local community. The Church eliminates poverty from the world by eliminating poverty from the local community. The Church heals the sick of the world by healing the sick in the local community.

The question that every particular church must continually ask itself is this: “If we close our doors for good, who beside us would notice?” If the answer is “no one,” or if it is difficult to find an answer, then the particular church may not be a church at all, but a social club masquerading as a particular church.

The Church in any form �" universal or particular �" cannot exist for itself and still exist as “Church.” The Church in all of its forms �" universal and particular �" is the Body of Christ. Christ is God’s compassion in and for the world. Compassion means “to suffer with; to experience another’s pain.” Through Jesus Christ, God came to us in the flesh, suffering with us, experiencing our pain, our lives, our death. Jesus Christ empowered the Church with its mission empowered with the Holy Spirit. So the Church is Christ’s continuing presence in the world, and as such, is God’s continuing compassion to and for and in the world.

God’s compassion is not just spiritual compassion, but physical and material compassion. Jesus did not just save souls, He saved lives! Jesus continues to save lives through the mission of the Church, and the arena for that salvation is the local community. Jesus does not merely stand for and provide “eternal life”; Jesus stands for and provides quality of life �" if that is difficult to accept, leaf through the pages of the Gospels and encounter the lepers restored to full community and life in society, the woman cut off from others because of chronic bleeding, the deaf who hear, the blind who see, the sick who are healed, the hungry who are fed, the paralytics who are able to walk �" all of these had life, and many if not all had access to eternal life, but Jesus is “ABUNDANT LIFE”; Jesus is QUALITY OF LIFE! Therefore, the Church, the Body of Christ, is to be about quality of local life.

The Church cannot think of salvation as eternal life without thinking of salvation as extending quality of life for the local community in which a particular church finds itself. “Wherever you go in the world,” Jesus tells the Apostles, “make disciples from every nation.” And Jesus tells us that when He judges the world, he will judge how we have assisted the living, not how we have prepared to receive eternal life �" because the truth is, we cannot prepare for eternal life if we ignore the needs of the living and dying in this life. Our eternal salvation is tied to the material and earthly salvation of others �" not the salvation of their souls, but the salvation of their lives through providing for their material and physical needs.

The Church must never be so focused on heaven that it serves no earthly good.