Reflections on the Church | Training Ground

If Love is the Head Coach of the Church, than Healing and Training are its Assistant Coaches. In order to execute the plays the Head Coach designs and desires, the Church needs plenty of time with Healing (Transformation) and Training. The church may consist of those claiming salvation which provides them access to relationship with God, it now needs to work out that salvation in “fear and in trembling”, or in all seriousness. The converted soul has spent many years under the rule and reign of a foreign coach (the World, the Devil, the Self) and culture that has effectively trained the person to naturally behave in ways contrary to how the New Team plays. The believer soon finds that even though he/she may be accepted into the team there is much training to be had and much debilitating elements in us that need to be uprooted and treated.

So, the church then becomes not only a center for inspiration but a space for training and practice in the New Way. Much healing is offered through effective uprooting of all previous influences that would continually undermine the Coach’s efforts (Personal Ministry courses). Much of the healing comes through training. Learning new ideas, new ways to approach life, new world views, begin to creep into the old way of thinking. The new imagery and emotions attached to them offer the self a chance to replace the old way of living and thinking. This process of becoming a proficient member of the new family, the new team, is the process we call Repentance. We are called to humbly submit our old way of living and thinking, our prejudices, our cultural allegiances and take up instead the compulsions of Christ and His Culture/Kingdom.

Much of the training and healing is offered directly through the local church, God’s local hospital. God desires to save, heal, transform, inform, and re-form each individual in the context of the local church community. But why use a frail human community? Because it is only in this visible sometimes annoying context that love can be practiced. And love is the main ingredient to all things Supernatural and it is the only path to intimate living with the Invisible God. It is people exercising God’s love and receiving God’s love via each other in this safe space where God’s love materializes and transforms. We can’t love the Invisible if we’re not willing to practice healing love with the visible Body, which is the local Church.