“Don’t bring Jesus into this. This has nothing to do with Jesus.” – church leader

Several years ago, a preacher told me one of his fellow church leaders actually made this statement in a heated argument regarding how to use their newly expanded facility. The preacher wanted to open the building to the community for all kinds of groups to use, and this other leader wanted to protect their new space from being worn excessively by people from outside the church. He thought it should serve the church and only those people involved in church sponsored and church run programs. When the preacher asked the question, “What would Jesus do with our building?” it elicited the above response. 

To be fair to this anonymous man, I expect he regretted his statement almost immediately. It was probably a thoughtless gut response which he would not have made after calm deliberation. At least I hope that is the case. But the fact that it was said at all, and allowed to stand in the meeting, is a problem. That there was such a sharp dispute around building usage just exposes how divergent the thinking and values can get in churches and Christian ministries. 

What is the role of the church vis-à-vis the world around us? What is our mission? What is God doing in the world and what is our role in it? Too often, we just haven’t done the work to get to a common understanding of these core issues in Christian circles. If we don’t get clarity around these questions from a biblically informed gospel perspective, we will end up importing ideas from other arenas of our culture as default values. Before long, the church becomes just a religious version of all the other organizations we see around us. When that happens, the church offers little that is transformational for people caught in the life-crippling lies of the world.

For us to get clear on God’s mission, we really need to recover the concept of God’s kingdom. Yet, this may be the most neglected core subject by Christians in the American church and communities around the globe influenced by American churches.  

Americans have talked endlessly about a “personal relationship with Jesus” who is our “personal Lord and Savior.” We have made a constant case for why everyone needs to have a church home and attend church regularly. We have heard many messages about the Christian foundations of America and preserving our Christian heritage. But we have heard little about the kingdom of God or reign of God that draws us into the epic story told throughout scripture. We struggle to see ourselves as part of a larger reality than a personal faith with great afterlife benefits, part of something which is not limited to a local congregation nor focused on a single country or national culture. 

The Kingdom of God was the primary subject of Jesus’ preaching.  When the writers of the four Gospels summarize Jesus’ message, they often say something like “The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). This can be translated “reign of God” or “kingdom of God.” It refers to those who live consistently with the understanding that God rules through his Messiah, Christ, or King Jesus. This is a much larger concept that that of a congregation, which is a local community of believers. It is a conviction in great tension with any other political entity such as a nation-state or country. 

God’s kingdom draws together people from every nation (i.e., people group not nation-state), tribe, and tongue. It does not respect national boundaries and makes claims that supersedes any other king, president, or prime minister. It challenges any effort to reduce God’s mission to the service of any nation-state’s wellbeing or make God’s power serve an institution (congregation or parachurch organization) instead of those entities serving God’s kingdom. 

This is a big topic, and I can’t do it justice in one blogpost. I do though want to raise the issue of making a clear distinction between healthy Kingdom thinking and unhealthy institution or nation thinking. 

Not all institutional or nation thinking is bad, if we can keep them bounded within a kingdom mindset. But when the good of the institution or nation becomes the higher priority, then they become rivals of God and enemies of his mission. They become idols that threaten God’s kingdom instead of work within it.  

Perhaps the best way to get clarity on this issue is to focus on the questions each mentality is asking and/or noting the problems they are trying to solve. 

Kingdom thinking asks: how do we join God in expanding his loving and rightful reign over all creation and demonstrate his coming restoration of all things?

Institution/Nation thinking asks: how can my church, organization, or ministry grow and thrive in this time? How can we expand our platform and power not only over our “territory” but over all those around us?

Kingdom thinking focuses on God’s honor and his mission. 

Institution/Nation thinking focuses on an “our” reputation and status. 

Kingdom thinking lifts ups everyone it engages. It is about serving others, insiders or outsiders, in the name of Jesus and helping them to thrive as they move ever deeper into the life and story of God revealed in Jesus. A Kingdom mentality uses structures to serve people. 

Institution/Nation thinking wears people out. It sees people as resources to serve “our” expansion. It will sacrifice people (made in God’s image to live eternally with him) to preserve abstract temporary entities. It uses people to serve structures. 

Kingdom thinking is about God and his mission. 

Institution/Nation thinking is about us and our success. 

Go back to the opening quote. When Jesus can seem irrelevant to any decision about how to conduct our affairs, kingdom thinking has been overcome by a different mentality altogether.