Individualism in our society, as I look at it today, is the greatest threat to an understanding of the church and the meaning of being a Christian. Yet, the unique contribution of America in the history of humankind has been the perfection of individualism.
The result is a generation of Christians trying to find "God's will for my life" rather than God's will period. They are the people who come to me on a campus to seek God's will, having already decided what careers they will pursue, who they will marry, where they will live, how much they will earn, how many children they will have, and what kind of car they will drive. It is not God's will they are asking for, but rather, "How do I fit God into my life?"
They later become dissatisfied with their plans and instead of changing begin to look around for an "exciting church" or a "new feeling or spiritual experience." They are looking around for what's happening when, as God's people, we are called to make things happen.
What is God doing in the world today? How can Christians make things happen? The answer to both questions is building the local body of Christ. The Spirit of God is at work today "nourishing and knitting people together through joints and ligaments" (Colossians 2:19) into local fellowships that can effectively embody the life of Jesus Christ in those neighborhoods.
This is contrary to the traditional teaching of the church in our age. People usually say that the body of Christ is that universal, invisible, world-wide body of believers. And that is true. But the apostle Paul did not spend a lot of time talking about that body. Contemporary practice allows me to maintain my individualism because being identified with everyone in the universal body means that I am accountable to no one. In that group, my theology can become heaven-centered because the "mission" of the universal church is too general to have any real objectives, or when it takes objectives, a handful of "missionaries" can give vicarious participation in the Lord's work to masses of "regular" church members.
But there are examples developing where individuals are subjecting themselves to a local assembly. One such group puts membership like this: being able to give and receive the admonitions of the Lord concerning my life and behavior. This is the type of body the apostle Paul spent most of his time writing about. Paul was always getting people together at a local level to form a body to carry on God's work in that town or city. The universal body is significant, but God wants me to participate in the local body in order that I can effectively do his will here on earth.
By submitting myself to a local body, I can name those to whom I've submitted myself and am therefore accountable. I can see specific needs in the local community and therefore have objectives, both in the body and for me personally. My theology becomes very liberation-centered because the "mission" of a local church is specific enough to have real objectives for which I have responsibility and is defined by the particular needs in the neighborhood which cry out for spiritual and physical healing.
I think two things happen when we understand the importance of the local body. First, God will give us an understanding of the gospel itself. Most people say, "The gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ," and if they are really fundamental they will add the second coming. This is the propositional gospel. But as we rediscover the local body, we rediscover that the gospel is also incarnational. Jesus Christ represents the historical fleshing out of God's love for humanity, once in time. What God wants to do is duplicate that once-in-history manifestation of his love throughout all history by putting the same life that was in his Son into groups of people.
The way this happens is the second thing God does when we rediscover the importance of the local body: he restores the gifts of the Spirit. The gifts are never mentioned in terms of individuals -- only in the context of the body. These gifts are given not to glorify persons, but to build the body, to cause it to function as a whole (Ephesians 4:11, 12). As people submit themselves to each other and set aside their individualism, God gives them gifts. We can see Jesus walking the earth again, able to carry on the same ministries he carried on when he was here before as one person. Just as he said, "the Father who dwells in me does His works" (John 14:10), so now, the Father who dwells in us, Christ's new body, "does His works." We can begin to see how God intended to answer the prayer of Jesus in John 17. By cracking our individualism, "we may all be one even as the Father was in Jesus and Jesus in the Father, we also may be in them, so that the world may believe that the Father sent Jesus."
By seeing the local body fleshed out, the world will be able to understand the gospel because it is modeled, not just explained propositionally. It can be caught, not just taught. And we as Christians will understand, as Jesus duplicates himself in one location after another, what he meant when he said, "He who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father." If Christians lay hold of this principle, the church could become the most effective means of developing poor communities and the most effective means of preaching a whole gospel to whole people. It will be different than any other media or method simply because it is alive.
John Perkins was a contributing editor to Sojourners and president of Voice of Calvary in Mendenhall and Jackson, Mississippi, when this article appeared.
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