THE BEAT e123 Go Local for God, Live Local with Jesus

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.

Season 2 Episode 123

THE BEAT | Go Local for God, Live Local with Jesus

Quick Take

Hey human, in this episode we cover a sensitive one, going to church. Why go, what it really means, and the power of living local with Jesus. Has he brought you to your local well? Join in on e123. Thanks for listening.

How is God moving you today?

I’m Kathryn Bise, your host.

God is moving me with quite a few words today. Thanks for listening.

God’s story is rich with worship. To the Israelites following Moses, God was in a cloud, a fire, 40 years of manna every morning, and quail every night. Their means of daily sustenance. Surviving. That was the relationship, until what? Until God introduced plans for the first tabernacle to Moses on the mountain. To remind us, the Hebrew word for “tabernacle” is “mishkan” which literally means “dwelling place.” The tabernacle is about the place God dwells. Because he wanted, he wants fellowship with us.

Here’s what God said at that time.

Exodus 29:45-46

45 Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. 46 They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.

I don’t want to ask you to find a local church home. Or tell you that we have a lot of vacant pews and empty churches. It will make you feel cornered. It does me. And it’s not my vibe.

I feel cornered by the anticipated response. I have heard many of the reasons folks do not participate in a local church. I don’t want to spend any time on those reasons and the long country road that got us to this point. Sounds pretty rude, but I have been there, lived in that moment, and I just deleted two paragraphs explaining what they are, and the mental image of a splintered worship scene, a fractured body of Christ, a teeming sanctuary of hypocrites, when left to human interpretation.

That’s what I don’t want to ask you, human.

So Many People Are Going It Alone

What I do want to do is illuminate the power of when the Word became flesh, and Jesus walked the earth. He took it on with his blood, the deepest of personal sacrifices. And what I know from a decent amount of living is that we are closest to God in prayer, in His Word and in connection with each other. While church attendance continues to seriously decline some have taken church “inside the home” with designated time for an online service, and maybe a physical space for private time between “you and God.” My designated physical space is in my studio. Attendance seems restrictive, somehow outdated in a world where streaming gives us a sense of timelessness, and automation delivers us the next step right now.

While attendance is decreasing, attending to our spiritual nature is on the rise. Bible sales are significantly increasing. That’s such good news. The Christian nonfiction market is thriving. This increased digital accessibility to a sovereign God contributes generously to prompting a human to purchase a Bible. God can work with this, Jesus can lead the digital space, and the Holy Spirit can inspire our “digital” landscape, the way so many of us have gone.

Yet so many people are physically going it alone. A spiritual solo act. By alone I mean no face-to-face relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ. No face-to-face weekly greetings, no face-to-face conversations with someone who wandered onto your neighborhood path because they are seeking spiritual grace and peace. No face-to-face witnessing about God’s presence in your life. None of these things, consistently.

Approaching God is a Gift

Approaching God is a gift. It is about what God, and Jesus have said about our opportunity to approach them within a group of believers, for the purpose of worship, service, and support. And how to do stuff in their name.

1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 27

Unity and Diversity in the Body

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

And, verse 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

God gives us the opportunity to approach him, just like the Israelites at the foot of Mt. Sinai. God comes to us. Always has, always will. He has the power to do this. Jesus comes to us, he knocks at our door. This is the origin of our relationship with God. He comes to us.

Yet he gives us each other as a way that is worthy of my weekly obedience to walk on the sidewalk, up to the door and enter his house of worship.

It is something I deliberately do, that I affirm my worship of him, publicly, witnessing my worship amongst my fellow believers. It isn’t about being seen. It is about meeting God where he says he will be. Like the cloud, the fire, the tabernacle. Remember, the people were scared to talk to God, and said they only wanted to talk to Moses. Through Jesus, we need not be scared but deliberate on approaching our God.

We are physical beings. Sometimes we need physical action to help us connect to God’s spirit. We need ways to demonstrate our choice to follow him. Public affirmation. Say it Out Loud in a Crowd—Publicly walking into a church, greeting others who have made the same life-altering commitment, and settling into service and spiritual growth is part of God’s foundation for your life. Doing this with someone on your right and on your left is part of the worship gene we share.

God cares about the spiritual discipline of being consistent, better said, steadfast. Some days, earthly Kathryn would rather stay home, make Belgium yeast-waffles, and chill, until I get to our church, and start singing. When I approach God’s house, I know I am approaching his house. If I were in Israelite in the desert of Sinai, I would be walking toward the tabernacle courtyard, dragging my reluctant sacrifice behind me. (that image makes me deeply sad)

Acts 2:42

The Fellowship of the Believers

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

In 1 John 3:14 the apostle tells us that we know that we’ve passed from death to life because we love our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Gathering together is a sign of our salvation to eternal life.

Jesus Went Local

Jesus went local. Jesus went one-on-one. He did not book a regional tour though he did one. He met people face to face, along his path. Yes, he delivered the sermon on the mount to thousands, but he stayed in the moment, and knew where his flock was, his disciples at all times.

You could argue that he would be doing what so many are doing today but when you look at the context within which he went local, and his divinely prophetic trail through the Old Testament, he fulfilled the intimacy that comes from standing face to face with God, then face to face with man, loving his children.

The face of God to the face of his Son to the face of man.

The “church” is not a building in my mind. It is an altar for the gathering of people who have made a commitment to God: to raise their voices together, participate in serving their community together, and test each other’s spiritual character to strengthen our relationship with God and bear a stronger witness to his nature.

The church is the body of believers and those who are seeking.

Acts 20:28

28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

Ephesians 4:12

12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up

Romans 12:5

5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

A Local Place for You. What Jesus Said.

Jesus said he goes to prepare a place for us, that in his Father’s house are many rooms… John 14:2.

I believe this is true here too, that wherever God wants us, where we are to follow his Son, and do our earthly ministry, he will prepare our way, our path. Whatever local church he puts you in, and at first, you may only know this because you keep going back but you don’t know why… he is preparing your place in that space.

God’s word persuades us metaphorically, that we are a body, a flock, and with a whole bunch of these, we are a holy nation. No lone wolves. This doesn’t mean you have to be “the life of the church party” but it does mean you should show up where God has already prepared a local place. And pray for where he wants you to sit… and with whom.

God will use the imperfect, hypocritical nature of humans, that’s all of us, to strengthen our spiritual character. The scars of hypocrisy are no excuse to ghost the local church God has prepared for you.

We are all terminal hypocrites. Going to a local church has nothing to do with hypocrisy.

It has everything to do with affirming His glory.

God’s Hand, Jesus’s Footsteps

We have gone through the process of seeking out a new local church home twice since 2020, due to relocating. God has shown me that it is not about a church membership, it is about his plan for my local witness. He ties it together so beautifully with my digital life.

I go local for God by his hand, with Jesus, by his footsteps.

I have rallied a few spiritual prompts that characterize what going local with Jesus is for me right now.

See what you think.

I have a local Shepherd—God has appointed our pastor to shepherd my journey. This is not the same as following someone on Instagram or your chosen social media platform. If God wants you there, he has selected that pastor(s) to spiritually guide you as part of his local flock. His messages, your conversations with him will prompt your spiritual growth by God’s hand.