I’ve grown to value greatly the wisdom and council I’ve received through Frank Viola’s books and articles. One of his latest articles is, I think, helping me to see the role I am playing in the beginnings of our church community. Finding Organic Church (PDF) is giving me a name, and that name is Aquila.
For those of you not familiar with Aquila, he is the husband of Priscilla. The two worked with Paul, acting as a sort of John the Baptizer for him in Ephesus and Rome. The couple prepared the way for Paul to come and lay the foundation of Christ among believers in each city.
That isn’t a bad summary for what I think Kerri and I have been doing. We have tried cast the vision of the church as we are learning it: a body, a family of brothers and sisters who meet under the headship of Christ building one another up and spurring one another on to love and good deeds in order that the Kingdom of Heaven might be made manifest on earth more and more. And so far as we understand and have experienced the abundant life of the church we can share that…
But we don’t have much in the way of experience gathering in this way. We have only seen dimly through the pages of Scripture and the stories of others, such as the Potter Street Community What we have going here in Dayton is good. I think it’s headed in the right direction. Nevertheless, I am thinking we need help from outside ourselves to enlarge our vision and plant/nurture the seed of Christ as Head.
