Stop Converting, Start Recruiting

Jesus Left Behind a Holy Priesthood not an Optional Club

When I considered what Jesus left behind, as an inheritance, I first outlined the scale:

If we apply the question "how big is the inheritance Jesus left behind?" then the answer is: it's a huge inheritance! Jesus tells the disciples that whey they forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven and what they permit on earth will be permitted in heaven (see Matthew 16).

But then we must ask, who is named in the inheritance from Jesus? Who gets what? That’s the key question we’d wonder about if invited to the reading of a will. 1 Peter 2:4-5 tells us the answer:

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (NIV)

So, we are the inheritors. All of us. And Jesus left us a responsibility to embrace as the priesthood of all believers. Eugene Peterson paraphrased it well:

"Welcome to the living Stone, the source of life. The workmen took one look and threw it out; God set it in the place of honor. Present yourselves as building stones for the construction of a sanctuary vibrant with life, in which you’ll serve as holy priests offering Christ-approved lives up to God."

In light of this, my perspective on the inheritance of Jesus is that we need to stop converting people and start recruiting people.

What if our witness, our acts of evangelism, are not fundamentally a matter of conversion, but of recruiting. What if the problem is that we’ve been converting people to become an audience in a physical space, when all along Jesus entrusted to us, those named in his will as it were, to recruit others into that same holy priesthood in a spiritual sanctuary with no physical address? What if when you extended the life of Christ to others you were not merely hoping they’d attend some event or date or time in a place of worship, but you were literally handing them the keys to the kingdom of God? Because if you read these passages about what God left us with that perspective, that seems to be what we’re doing.

It would make sense that those we reach out to don’t know they are being offered the opportunity to join the holy priesthood—but why is it that we don’t we know we’re the priests too? Why is it that we don’t know we’re a part of the set apart people? Why do is our royalty in Christ unknown? Why is it that the church doesn’t know who she is?

The reality is that every follower of Jesus is a member of the holy priesthood as much as any other believer on earth, from peasant to Pope. You, reading this now, if you follow Christ as his disciple then you are this royal nation, you are considered by God his holy priest, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve followed him for a day or a decade or a whole lifetime. It doesn’t matter if you are a licensed minister or a lay person; it doesn’t matter if you’re lily-livered about evangelism or lackluster about your faith. Your resume isn’t what it’s about—the blood of Christ makes you a part of the priesthood of all believers and if nobody ever told you that it’s because they didn’t want to scare you off, or in some cases, didn’t want to empower you with all you are given from Christ.

Ephesians 1 makes all this very potent:

18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms

This means that each and every one of us needs to get in the game. All of us need to seize our responsibility, to wield our priesthood with intentionality. We must be active. We can participate, enjoy, love, serve, and lead in the kingdom. This is not the task of some professional class or category. It is not for the ordained alone. We are empowered and required to bear witness that anyone, anywhere can join this amazing community of those Christ left behind to be his body, to share in his blood.

Because of this when we disparage the “church” we just disparage ourselves. Again, the church is not an institution, per se. It is not, in its essence, an organization outside of its organic existence and essence. All of the organizing tools are subsidiary to the all-time-all-of-the-faithful community of the King—the eschatological body of Christ. Are there great orgs and institutions and practices that are part of the “best approach” (bene esse) of the Church? Sure. But are they the true nature of the church, the essential core (esse), no? At the core, the church is you and I in Christ.

So, we are not stuck with the church anymore than we might be stuck with our own bodies or stuck with oxygen. The church is no albatross around our necks to be thrown off. The true church, the kingdom of God, is to be lived into, not tossed aside. If an organization or institution that is not the true church is wrong, then it must be brought into alignment wit the true church (I spoke about how to engage in “always reforming” the church here).

This is all true because the church is the very essential language of the redeemed, the confluence of the elect who are chosen for sending, the set apart ones ready for mission of God. So in this the church is not optional, because it is a given. It is not so much that you can’t have Christ without the church, it is that once you are in Christ you are the church, by definition. For a Christian to want to get rid of the church is like saying you want to be in the ocean without getting wet. Christ is the ocean, the church means getting wet. It’s just what happens.

Because of this the church is not merely a means of grace, it is the manner and meaning of grace working as the body of Christ. The church is not the path to or the way for, it is who we already are while the means of grace are given. We are the church by definition, not by action or discipline. Sorry to break it to you: you can no more leave the church than you can leave the new man or woman you are in Christ. The only way to deconstruct the true essence of the church is to deconstruct your faith in Christ itself.

So, if you’re wondering if you’re listed in the inheritance, the answer is yes. And if you want others listed too—just recruit them. But don’t sell it short. They aren’t just “checking it out to help their lives”… what you’re offering them is everything, for nothing. And if they don’t like the institutional church, that’s fine. Those organizations just seem to be the church, but are only appearing to be… as through a glass darkly. Then help them know that they are the church themselves, and can reform the church, change the church, start new churches, begin new ways of being the church—but they cannot escape the church unless they escape Christ himself.