Dear Brothers and Sisters,

You are invited to come to the Wednesday evening prayer meeting and pray for the church (and other things -- 7:00 PM Wed., LHF time).

The Church is: "his (Jesus's) body, the overflowing abundance, the wealth beyond measure and the full and perfect nature of him (God) who fulfills and completes everything in every way." (Eph. 1:23 -- "amplified" translation) The importance of the Church in God's eyes is very much greater, I believe, than we are in the habit of thinking.

In Ephesians chapter 2 the apostle Paul pictures the Church as a building -- a temple in which God lives by his Spirit -- with Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone: "In him (Jesus) the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling place in which God lives by his Spirit." (Eph. 2:21,22) I want to talk about the significance of this analogy in more detail.

The word "church" means assembly or congregation. (This is the biblical meaning as opposed to any more recent meaning such as a building or a denomination.) We usually think of the term church as simply referring to the collection of all of the individual Christians. But it's clear from Paul's analogy to a temple or a building or a body -- the body of Christ (Eph. 1:23), that the Church is much more than simply the sum total of the individual members. Because we are members of a very individualistic culture it's easy for us to miss this point. Even when we come together as a congregation (a church) to worship God, we frequently sing hymns and worship songs that use pronouns such as "I" and "me" rather than "we" and "us". We are meeting together as a church but we are singing as though it's only "me and God" and no one else is present. I don't mean to imply that our individual relationships with God are unimportant or that there is no place for hymns written in the first person singular. After all, many Psalms are written that way. Your individual relationship with God is very important. To know God is eternal life! But we easily forget about the importance of the Church.

The Empire State building is greater than the total of all the steel, concrete and other materials that went into it. A single living cell is much greater than the sum total of the atoms and molecules that make it up. The human body is very much greater than the collection of the trillions of individual cells that compose it. And the Church, the body of Christ, the temple of God, is vastly greater than the sum total of all of the individual Christians that make it up. Individual believers are "sealed for the day of redemption" by the Holy Spirit of God (Eph. 4:30), but it is in the temple -- the building into which you, as a believer, are being built -- the building which has Christ as the chief cornerstone -- that God lives by his Spirit. The Church is the overflowing abundance, the wealth beyond measure and the full and perfect nature of God who fulfills and completes everything in every way. Come on Wednesday and pray for the Church.

Grace and peace,
Dean Svoboda

PS: You can also bring you own prayer requests and pray for them with your brothers and sisters in Christ (i.e., with the Church). Bring your requests to God with thanksgiving and receive his peace.

PPS: Pass this invitation along to others in your household or to someone who doesn't have an e-mail address in the LHF directory.