Rediscover Church
Rediscover Church: Why the Body of Christ is Essential
By: Collin Hansen, Jonathan Leeman (Study Guide with Megan Hill)
“Heaven touches down on planet earth through our gathered churches. And when this happens, you offer the citizens of your nation the hope of a better nation, the residents of your city the hope of a better and lasting city.”
Covid-19 caused lockdowns and prevented churches from meeting in person. Churches adapted by moving to livestream and online services. But the year of 2020 brought divisions over many things— masks and vaccines, race protests, and the election and churches became less unified.
When doors re-opened, many people decided not to go back to church. What was the point? They disagreed with so many of the people and they could just find church online in the comfort of their home.
Hansen and Leeman have written this book to show why gathering as a church— the body of Christ— is so important. They come at it not from a utopian view, but with first-hand knowledge of the struggles churches have had and a plea for us to endure with each other even when it gets messy.
But first…. what is church?
The book is formatted around the answer to this question. Each chapter fleshes out one phrase of what it means to be a church:
“A group of Christians [Who can belong to the church?]
Who assemble as an earthly embassy of Christ’s heavenly kingdom [Do we really need to gather?]
To proclaim the good news and commands of Christ the King [Why are preaching and teaching central?]
To affirm one another as his citizens through the ordinances [Is joining actually necessary?]
And to display God’s own holiness and love [Is church discipline really loving?]
Through a unified and diverse people [How do I love members who are different?]
In all the world [How do we love outsiders?]
Following the teaching and example of elders” [Who leads?]
When I read this book I also had the corresponding study guide. Study guides are often repetitive and just busy work, but I thought this study guide book was really good. There are about 10 pages of questions for each chapter with space to write answers.
The questions are formed around quotes from the chapter with additional Bible passages not found in the book.
This book can be read alone (as I did) but I think it’s meant to be read in a group. The church learning together how to be a church. If you do read it in a group, I think you’ll want to have the study guide workbook as well. The questions are discussion-worthy and helpful in reflecting on the material. (I’ve included some pictures at the end)
Hansen and Leeman ask us to ‘rediscover church.’ To return to a place that may have hurt you or frustrated you. To remember why we meet together. To reflect on how we view church and if it fits with what God has called us to in Scripture.
“You have many reasons not to rediscover church and one reason why you must: because through these people you don’t much like, God wants to show his love to you. It’s the only kind of love that can draw us out of ourselves and into a fellowship that transcends the forces tearing apart our sick world. It’s the only essential way for us to find healing together…
…Beyond all that, your church is where Christ says he’s present in a unique way.”
I was just reading a book about nature where the author commented on how nature is a cathedral. Eluding to the idea that we don’t need a building full of hypocrites. We can be closer to our Creator by spending time with him alone in nature.
Part of this is true. It’s great when we can spend time alone with God in his creation. But this can’t be a replacement for church.
God, as the Trinity, is in constant relationship. He created us to be in relationship with others. How can we love and serve and exhibit all the other fruit of the Spirit if we have removed ourselves from the gathering of God’s people?
It’s more convenient to ‘do church’ on our own time in our own way. We all have preferences and ideas of what church should look like or feel like. But then we creep into the consumer-mentality that church is just about what we can get out of it.
“What goes missing when your ‘church’ experience is nothing more than a weekly livestream? For starters, you think less about your fellow members. They don’t come to mind. You don’t bump into them and have the quick conversations that lead to longer conversations over dinner. Beyond that, you remove yourself from the path of encouragement, accountability, and love.”
“Gathering with the church can be inconvenient, but so is love. Relationships are messy, but so is love. Vulnerable conversations are scary, but so is love.”
This was one of the points that resonated the most with me. How can we create unity if we never see each other? How can we build trust if we’re never together? How can we serve the world in the most effective way if we’re isolated, alone, or indifferent?
“A church must build relationships of depth and endurance. It’s impossible to teach everything Jesus commanded to people you barely know and hardly see.”
As much as I agree with all of these things, I do think that there are some benefits to livestreams that neither author touched on. I do think pastors should encourage their congregation members away from relying on that and to invest in the church in-person.
But the livestream and online service is a way to include church members when they can’t physically be there for whatever reason. It also may make it easier for newcomers to come to church for the first time if they can watch a service ahead of time and know what to expect. Video services can reach people in other countries who may not have access to a church.
Virtual church can definitely become an unhealthy crutch or avoidance mechanism, but I’m not sure I’m ready to say nix it all.
One thing this book helped me understand better was the role of deacons. I was never part of a church where there were established roles called deacons. I think deacon and elder is often confused and can cause problems when women become involved in certain ministerial positions because congregation members don’t understand the particular office of leadership.
I didn’t realize that the word ‘deacon’ means to serve. So, in Scripture, when Jesus says that he came to serve and not be served, the word there is deacon. It’s a verb not a noun. Jesus came to deacon.
“If every Christian is called to serve and work to maintain the unity of the church, why formally recognize an office of deacon? Because it reminds the church how close such service is to the heart of the gospel and our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Mk 10:45)
While I’m not sure if I would want to start establishing deacons called deacons, this book helped me know how to think of those roles in relation to elders.
A couple things I wondered about with this book were just what they would have be requirements for church membership. I’m not entirely sure what they think because they don’t mandate anything in their book, but it would seem they require church members to have been baptized. And they require the Lord’s Supper to only be for church members.
Granted, though baptism is not what saves you, if someone wasn’t baptized, I would probably wonder why. And maybe they just mean membership in the Church, big C, when it comes to the Lord’s Table. I don’t know.
I also saw a reviewer criticizing the book, not because of the content, but because of the authors. He felt the way the actually handled things during the pandemic contradicted what they put forth in this book.
I think I probably disagree with Hansen and Leeman on many things involving the pandemic, but does that mean we ignore their book? I don’t think so. I think what they’ve written here is truth. The things we disagree on about Covid are not major issues in matters of theology or salvation.
As this book itself states, we can still be part of God’s family with people we disagree with in matters like the pandemic.
I don’t think I’m going to hold their actions in 2020 in regards to how their church operated or how they viewed churches who operated differently than them against them. The year 2020 was unprecedented, no one really knew what was going on and what future months would actually look like. Church leaders were doing the best they could with the information they had in the places they were. Mistakes were made all over the place. This book has come out in the wake of that and to me that doesn’t show hypocrisy, it shows growth.
As I mentioned before, I think Hansen and Leeman are probably more against online services than I’m ready to be yet, but I think the heart in this book is very biblical and important to bring to our churches.
Recommendation
If you’ve become jaded by church or frustrated with division, this is the book for you. If you haven’t returned to church since Covid because no one has given you a reason to, this is the book for you. If you’re at church but you’re not sure why, this is the book for you. If you’ve never been to church because you don’t want to insert yourself into a mess, this is the book for you.
As the title suggests, Hansen and Leeman have written this great book to draw God’s people back together to rediscover church. A gathering of the body of Christ for Christ, for each other, and for others.
Church will never be perfect until Jesus returns, but it will never stop being important.
“We need churches that call us to something greater than ourselves. We need churches that call us finally to God. When we follow the example of Jesus, we get the church we need.”
If you are more interested in how differences in politics should be handled in church, check out Jonathan Leeman’s book How the Nations Rage.
I would also recommend Kevin DeYoung’s book What is the Mission of the Church?.
Other Quotes
“Families don’t always get along. But their bonds to one another as family members help them persevere through conflict. The shared blood prevails. The same is true for the church. Because we’ve been reconciled to God through repentance and faith, we’ve also reconciled to each other.”
“Sometimes people like to say that ‘a church is a people, not a place.’ It’s slightly more accurate to say that a church is a people assembled in a place… The point is, regularly gathering together is necessary for a church to be a church, just like a team has to gather to play in order to be a team.”
“Sadly, our churches won’t always declare and embody heaven well. We’ll disappoint you and say insensitive things. We’ll even sin against you. Our assemblies are merely signs and foreshadowing of that future heavenly assemble… They aren’t the things themselves. Yet we aspire to point you to the heart of heaven, who is Christ himself. He never sins or disappoints. The good news is that sinners like you can join us in that enterprise, if you’ll only confess your sins and follow after him.”
“Hearing a sermon isn’t just about you and your personal walk with Jesus. It’s also about shaping a heavenly culture and building a heavenly city in your very church. It’s about shaping a life together.”
“The sermon casts a vision from God’s Word for a particular people in a particular place, as they have covenanted together to obey God and love one another.”
“When you become a church member, you’re not just submitting to the leaders or the ‘institution’ in some vague bureaucratic sense. It’s your way of saying, ‘This is the particular group of Christians I’m inviting into my life and asking to keep me accountable in following Jesus. I’m asking them to take responsibility for my Christian walk. If I’m discouraged, it’s now their responsibility to encourage me. If I stray from the narrow path, it’s their responsibility to correct me. If I’m in dire financial straits, it’s their responsibility to look after me.’”
“The world gives us two options. One perspective asks us to celebrate diversity by prioritizing differences in ethnicity, nationality, gender, and, increasingly, sexual orientation. This perspective trains us to feel right and good when these various identities are included in our community. A room full of faces of the same color feels wrong, even immoral… A second perspective asks us to celebrate uniformity… Uniformity is considered the highest value. A room where people disagree with each other over politics or their view of the world feels wrong, even immoral… Both perspectives create community through exclusion.”
“…when a church obeys the commands of Jesus together. The commands to forsake anger. To reject lust. To love enemies. To give to the needy. To not be anxious about anything. When Christians inside act this way toward one another and toward outsiders, the world sees their good works as a city set on a hill and illuminated with the twinkling lights of Christmas. Their light shines in such a way that outsiders want to come inside and give glory to the Father in heaven.”
“You don’t need to be an extrovert to be a faithful church member. Some people have a lot of emotional energy to spend, some only have a little. We’re just saying, spend what you have. Be faithful with whatever resources God has given you to love and be loved by your church.”
“If you don’t participate regularly, you don’t get the formative experience of church. You don’t grow in biblical knowledge through the teaching or in relational depth through praying with others. And if you don’t seek the good of others, you learn to judge the church for how it fails to meet your needs and how others fail to reach out to you. Neither of us has ever seen people rediscover church and get what they want from the community unless they consistently show up and ask others how they can help.”
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Pictures of some of the study guide pages.
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