This week I’ll be doing a series of blogs on the Church. I’ve entitled them “The Church Blocker,” “The Church Hopper,” and “The Church Stopper.”

In Matthew 16:18 Jesus says, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of death will not overcome it.” While this verse is packed with material that could be discussed in length, I want to focus on one phrase, “I will build my church…” The global community that God is building belongs to Christ. It’s his. He has promised to build it and he has promised to protect it.

However, just as anything else in our lives, we often try to take ownership for ourselves. The three topics for this week are ways we deny the Church belongs to Christ and try to take ownership for ourselves. First, the Church Blocker.

“Blocking,” in athletics, is the action of frustrating the endeavors of the other team so your team can advance and move to victory. Blocking assumes two things: 1) There are two teams 2) Your team is better and deserves to win.

I see a lot of blocking happening in the Church today. I see churches seeking to block other churches from victory because they think theirs in better. I see this among individual churches and I see it among denominations. Denominations are a good thing. They provide structure, organization, accountability and unity. The problem is when we draw sharper denominational lines than actually exist. Just before the passage quoted above Peter confesses that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Upon this confession, Jesus is drawing a worldwide community to himself to do his work in the world – that community is called the Church. There is inherent unity in this confession! We tend to shortchange that unity by saying, “You believe Jesus is the Messiah (that’s great), but what do you say about tongues? Gifts of the Spirit? The end times? Wesley or Calvin?” We draw all kinds of lines based on things that are important, but not central to our faith. And then, if someone doesn’t agree with us, we block them. We block them because we see their message as dangerous. “If you aren’t teaching tongues speaking you are producing weak Christians.” “If you aren’t teaching holiness through a second work of grace you are producing immature Christians.” These arguments, and others like them, make one big assumption – we are the ones producing the fruit in people’s lives. We don’t do that, God does. We can facilitate Christian growth through discipleship, but we don’t produce it. Once we realize that, we are set free to minister as God has called us and watch God do his work among all kinds of churches and denominations that profess him as “Messiah, Son of the Living God.”

Let’s STOP THE BLOCK, and start experiencing community with Christians who see things differently than we do. Let’s pray for our brothers and sisters as they preach and proclaim Christ. They may not go about it the same way you do. They may do some things you don’t understand. They may have difference theological views than you do. But if they confess Christ as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God they are on the same team. We are working together in each community around the world to see God’s kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

It’s His Church, he is building it. Don’t deny his ownership by drawing lines that aren’t there.