Audience of One: From the only point of view that matters (God’s), no human knows how the service went.

ARRANGING FOR TRANSFORMATION - The second stage in God’s plan for the growth and prospering of local congregations has to do with immersing the apprentices into the Trinitarian presence. God’s intent is to be present among his people and heal them, teach them, and provide for them. 

A local congregation of disciples of Jesus should be a place where divine life and power is manifestly present to glorify God and meet the needs of repentant human beings. This implies an atmosphere of honesty, openness, indiscriminate acceptance of all, and supernatural caring with utter admiration for and confidence in Jesus. 

Performance, which is where we try to make an impression rather than just be what we are, would be absent in the Trinitarian gathering, as would constant solicitude concerning “How did the service go?” God is the primary agent in the gathering. From the only point of view that matters (God’s), no human knows how the service went. The minister does not need techniques but needs only speak Christ’s Word from Christ’s character, standing within the manifest presence of God. 

The third stage, intending and arranging for the inner transformation of disciples, is what Jesus described as teaching the disciples to do all he commanded. The doing of what he commanded is not the focus of our activities at this point; rather, it is the natural outcome or side effect. The focus is inner transformation of the five essential aspects of human personality that we have been studying. This should be the local congregation’s constant preoccupation. 

If this is your congregation, announce that you teach people to do the things that Jesus said to do. Publicize and run training programs designed to develop specific points of the character of Christ as given in the New Testament. Put the whole weight of the staff and the congregation toward this effort. All of the other details of church activities will matter little, one way or the other, so long as all are organized around God’s plan for spiritual formation in the local congregation.