Contents Up one level Introduction First clue Second Clue        

By John Cole

 

Understanding the 
Three Relationships

Every legitimate activity of the local church - in other words, everything that goes on in the life of a local church which is an attempt to fulfil what church members understand to be the church's God-given task or purpose - will fall somewhere within the area of three circles. 

Three examples may explain this:

1. Worship falls naturally within the area of our relationship with God. Some kinds of church service, however, - baptisms, weddings, funerals - may well be the only point of contact that some people have with the church. They thus form a significant part of that church’s relationship with ‘others’ and their proper place in the diagram is where the two circles overlap.

2. Sunday School or Junior Church or similar activities serve to develop relationships both with God and within the fellowship of the church. Thus they would appear on the diagram where these two circles overlap.

3. The church magazine, unless it is exclusively for church members, is another activity to be located in an area of overlap - this time between our relationship with ‘each other’ and ‘others’.

Of course, in trying to locate things in this way, there are many blurred edges. Strictly speaking nothing can be dissociated from our relationship with God for, as we shall see, God’s Spirit works through the very relationships themselves.

Two insights sustain this way of looking at things:

  1. The affirmation in the Nicene Creed
    "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church"
    . (FIRST CLUE)

  2. St Paul’s phrase
    "The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit" .
    (SECOND CLUE)

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