White Wave Manifesto: A Congregational-Sabbath Blueprint

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I wonder...

I wonder what would happen if the church didn't rely on our own strength and actually trusted God for strength.

I wonder why we insist on making the church move when the church is a movement of God.  

I wonder how effective the church has been for all of our hard work and how much more effective it would be if we allowed room for God to work.

I have enclosed a "blueprint" for a new church development or for churches wanting something new. It would take courage.  Major things would have to change. But imagine how different things would look if we gave control of the church back to God.

Over the next five weeks, I will look at each of these steps in more detail.  Until then, I have offered them to you in toto.  

White Wave Manifesto: A Congregational-Sabbath Blueprint

A. Stop: For four weeks every year.

·                     In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength,

            but you would have none of it. (Isaiah 30:15)

·                     He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. (Psalm 23:2)

           

B. Stop:  For one year every Seventh

·                     For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops.

                But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the LORD.  

            Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. (Leviticus 25:3-4)

             

C. Stop: Paying full-time staff

·                     For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God

            prepared in advance for us to do.  (Ephesians 2:10)

*         For by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles              of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. (Hebrews 5:12)

            

D. Stop: Counting Members.

*          Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? (I Corinthians 6:15a)

*          It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you             and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples...

E. Stop: Maintaining church buildings.

·                     All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and

            possessions to give to anyone who had need. (Acts 2:45)

.·                     Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you

            have received from God? You are not your own; (1 Corinthians 6:19)