Children of the revolution?

In church, a lot of people seem to have the view that doing God's work is the job of the guys up the front, the 'pros', the pastors, teachers, apostles and prophets. But check out this verse...

"Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work..."

It says that their job is to equip God's people (aka the church) to do his work - not to do it all themselves! Doing the work of God is the job of us everyday ordinary people in the pews and the 'pros' up the front are just there to help us.

So, when you go to church, what's your reason for being there? Do you go to be trained, equipped and inspired ready to go out and do the work of God and build his Kingdom the rest of the week? If not, maybe you should just have a lie-in on a Sunday morning instead - seriously, just don't bother coming. Ok, maybe I'm being a little harsh (or perhaps not?!).

God didn't design church to be just some comfortable social club. If that's all you want then go join the gym or take up golf. And God's not interested in us performing a bunch of empty religious rituals once a week. The way I read the Bible, it seems to me that God designed his church to be a bunch of rebels and revolutionaries who are willing to take risks to build his kingdom. I was reading some stuff last night about the early church and the radical way they lived. For example, if they couldn't feed the hungry people in their community, the church would fast until they had enough food for everyone to sit down and have a meal!!! And many of them were persecuted and even killed for pledging allegiance to Christ and to God's Kingdom instead of any earthly kingdoms. How did something that started out as a radical, dangerous community become so safe?!!