July 12, 2007

Dear Fellow “Church” Members,

God’s blessings, peace, and love be multiplied to you over and over. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be rejuvenated and empowered to carry out your unique assignment in His Kingdom. Here is the proposed beginning of the new book, What Is This Thing We Call Church?:

Getting Started

            This book is full of ideas, concepts, teachings, interpretations, and doctrines. For some these can be dull and boring, and for others exciting and informative. I pray that as you consider these things about church, above all else you can touch the heart of God beneath them.

            The heart of our Lover is so enraptured with His Bride, His Church, that He says, “Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me.”[1] Jesus is so in love with us that our seeking His face causes Him to be overwhelmed with love. He goes on to lovingly describe our feet, graceful legs, navel, waist, breasts, neck, eyes, nose, head, hair -”How beautiful you are and how pleasing.”[2] 

            May we begin to see ourselves as He sees us. Look into the mirror, but not one of those magnifying types that highlight our flaws and blemishes. Look into the mirror of the perfect law that gives freedom.[3]

            “I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me.”[4] Feel His heart. Rejoice in His love. Respond with your own affirmations of love for Him Who loved us first.  This is the heart of the Church’s worship, the Bride’s exaltation of her husband. Pray the prayer of the beloved, “Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned.”[5]

            The church is this Bride preparing for the wedding. The church is this body enraptured in a love relationship with her Head. The expression of this love for her lover is perhaps the highest and most wonderful thing the church can do. It is like the lavish and extravagant act of love when Mary anointed Jesus with the costly spikenard.

            I pray that I might be faithful in presenting God’s plan and pattern for church, but also true in revealing His heart.  

            The purpose of this book is to set people free from religious bondage to live glorious, fruitful, and victorious lives in Christ

 Foreword

            Jesus came into the world that we might have life, and have it to the full. Our real life with God had been lost in the Garden, and He Himself came to restore it to us. Actually, Jesus gives us more than was lost as God Himself now lives in us. He no longer just walks with us; He lives in us as we walk everywhere. We are never separated from Him Who is our life. In Him we live and move and have our being.

            However, our enemy deceives us into foolish and stupid errors. We take this life, and turn it into a religion. We quickly forget that He is in us. We take the forgiveness of sins that Jesus earned and procured for us, once for all, and develop sin management systems. We sew up again the veil that God ripped from top to bottom, and then fret and fuss thinking, “I have to get back in there.” We make up religious ways to get back into the Holy of Holies even though the barrier of the veil is forever shredded. We make mixtures of the Old and New Covenants. We forget that Jesus blood is the covering over the mercy seat, and that now God comes out and lives in us and uses us as His instruments. We set up priests or clergy patterned after the pagan religions, and elevate them to high and holy offices.

            We call this aberration, “church.” Moreover, most of us have separated “church” from life. We think of church as an experience separated from our real life. It is something that we “do” or attend. This is an abomination before God. Jesus came into the world to give us life, not a religion or system. He came to give us the life that is Himself. He calls us out of the world and into His Body, His church.

            What is this thing we call “church?” What constitutes church? What is church and what is not church? God help us as we seek His face and His answers to these questions and more.

            I’ve been reading quite a bit of late and recommend highly:

            Bethany, by Frank Viola. This is an excellent little free eBook  you can download from      www.ptmin.org/Bethany.htm   

            The Shack, by William P. Young. Eugene Peterson, translator of The Message Bible says this has the power to impact our generation like Bunyon’s Pilgrim Progress affected his. Available in September, or now through  www.TheShackBook.com    

            The Life Model and Living With Men both from the Shepherds House in Pasadena. Check out this ministry and their other books on  www.thelifemodel.org   

            Upcoming travels include Taiwan, from July 31 to August 14. (A huge extra blessing is that thirteen-year-old grandson Jesse Tebay is also going.)

            Saturday August 25 I will be doing a seminar for Church Elders and Leaders in the Portland area. Contact Vonnie Wheelon for information or registration -  503-659-7321  /  lftigger@hotmail.com   

            Thanks for the continuing prayers for Sarah. She is doing lots of therapy, including acupuncture (I stuck her yesterday with seven needles she needed for pain spasms. It was easy once she marked the places for the needles to go.) The surgery was reasonably successful, but has now revealed the need for a similar procedure for the right side.  

            Fear nothing or no one except God. Love nothing or no one more than God, and do not let the world squeeze you into its anesthetizing and destructive mold. It won’t be long now.

Love,

Frank