How are we structuring for maximum edification and building up of the church?

Tim Brister:

Here’s my point. If we are going to be intentional about preaching, membership, worship, disciplines, and other such marks of a healthy church, then we must also be intentional about our commitment to the priesthood of all believers and their ministry to the body. God dedicated two chapters with great detail and design to explain his desire for the church. We should not only recover the commitment and practice, but we should facilitate the full exercise and ongoing demonstration of each member’s gift through systems and structures toward the goal of maximum edification. 

Don’t think that a church can grow simply through the exercise of teaching and preaching. God didn’t design it that way. He wants every member involved. That’s why the Holy Spirit gifted them. The danger for churches is to specialize in certain gifts because of certain passions so that certain members gifted for those passions are used while others are neglected (I don’t need to create the stereotypes for you to imagine what churches might emphasize certain gifts over others). If your right index finger was no longer useful, would it not affect how you function? Moreover, if it was cut off, would the rest of the body feel it? And yet, do we not have members in the body who aren’t useful, and yet we become content to function without them? Do they not detach from the body, and we aren’t aware of it?

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