A Passionate Encounter

“A friend sent me a set of sermons on tape called “Passion for the Church” by a pastor in Maryland. I’m still not sure why I listened to those tapes. For a confirmed church-dater like me, the title alone was baffling. “Passion for the church”? The words passion and church absolutely did not connect in my mind! The series might as well have been called “Passion for the Grocery Store.” But for some reason, as I drove around my hometown of Gresham, Oregon, I popped those tapes into the cassette player and began to listen.

The preacher taught from the book of Ephesians. He showed that the church was actually God’s idea – not some plan or program invented by humans. In fact, the church is the only institution God promised to sustain forever.

This is where passion came in. To be part of the universal church isn’t enough, the preacher said. Every Christians is called to be passionately committed to a specific local church. Why? Because the local church is the key to spiritual health and growth for a Christian. And because as the visible “body of Christ” in the world, the local church is central to God’s plan for every generation.
I have to tell you, the biblical truths in those messages picked me up, turned me over, and gave me a good shaking. Out of my pockets tumbled an avalanche of well-worn attitudes about the church....For the first time I realized that a wholehearted relationship with a local church is God’s loving plan for me and for every other follower of Christ.”

–Joshua Harris, Stop Dating the Church, p. 14f.