Dying Church, Rising Body
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
“Pulse 130, BP 180 over 100, sweaty, chills, chest pains, immobile and on the way. Meet us at the ER.” It’s a heart attack. 911 has been called. The EMT’s are monitoring the victim and calling ahead. Doctors and nurses are ready to meet them. This scene is repeated many times in many places. Hospitals, staff and families gather with one purpose, save the patient. When a heart attack victim is brought into the emergency room the first thing that happens is to quickly diagnose the condition of the heart and determine what needs to be done immediately to stabilize the patient. Each victim is unique and demands special evaluation. Each staff member is given a special task, tests are run and technicians ready to analyze giving results and a special wing with constant care is provided for the patient to begin recovery. The necessary techniques are applied and a treatment program begun even before they are out of the emergency room. In some cases there is a basic recovery in a matter of hours while for others it may be a lifetime program. As in all heart cases a lifetime regimen of medicine, diet and exercise is prescribed. This regimen reverses the lifestyle that caused the attack.
Shift this scene into the spiritual context of the Body of Christ. Every human born since Adam and Eve has suffered a heart condition. It was caused by loss of intimacy with God due to sin blocking the arteries to the heart with self-centeredness, pride and fear. Separation from God cut off the oxygen of His grace and love necessary for the heart to live healthily in His presence. This reduced the heart’s life to being alone, frightened, emotionally hurting, physically limited and subject to death, which always lurks on the horizon of its last beat.
The mind in turn gasps for breath in a morally polluted atmosphere with questions that never quite find answers for spiritual lungs that long for the pure oxygen of God’s grace and love. Every human being has a heart condition and the growing crises of identity, meaning and purpose drive us to the critical edge of either ‘living lives of quiet desperation’ or lifting up that great anthem extolling sin’s finality, “I Did It My Way.” But always waiting in the wings of each conscious prodigal moment the Lord stands before us with open arms, /“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Mt.11:28).”/
With magnificent grace and abundant love God sent and continues to send His Son to be the ambulance for heart attack victims all over the world. He drives toward every heart to offer a relationship with Himself as the cure. His Body is the hospital with staff and spiritual gifts ready to treat and rehabilitate the lost and broken hearts brought to them. His Word is the diagnostic manual containing the treatment plan. His Holy Spirit is the medicine and the curative power to bring the heart back and restore it as an eternally functioning spiritual dynamo.
The whole process from recovering the victim, then on to treatment and rehabilitation, is called salvation. It has four continually interlocking parts, worship, discipleship, ministry and mission. The heart’s basic need is to bring the consciousness of the Lord Jesus into the mind and heart.
Restoring and developing our relationship with the Lord begins with worship. The mind is recovered through discipleship, which is studying, sharing and applying Scripture. The heart is rebuilt through ministry, which is the discovery and exercise of spiritual gifts in the Body.
Our purpose is in our witness among all those in the world still suffering from their heart condition, their separation from God. Our purpose is to reach those separated lost hearts and present Jesus. He is our mission. As He said, “When you see me you see the Father.”
In these four connected parts of our rehab program, worship, discipleship, ministry and mission, we fulfill that for which the heart was designed. To make those four elements work in harmony the Lord provides spiritual gifts for each element. So each heart has been given a piece of grace, a function, a job description, to contribute to the operation of the whole. No part is greater or lesser than any other as is no gift any greater or any lesser in God’s recovery plan wherein each heart is restored and productive as it works interdependently enabled by the Holy Spirit.
All of this will be repeated in succeeding chapters with spiritual gifts being increasingly emphasized as the means, the method, the practical foundation God established to build the church as He designed it to be, the Body of Christ."
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Dying Church,Rising Body centers on the need to reclaim the Biblical emphasis on church discipleship and growth the way it was done in the 1st Century. Too many churches have compromised with contemporary culture both in structure and faith thus the first half of the title, "Dying Church..." The first century church of Peter, Paul, John and the other Apostle's grew through their witness to Jesus Christ and making disciples whose interpersonal ministries and evangelism developed through the use of spiritual gifts thus the second half of the title, "Rising Body..." Paul especially emphasized this method of developing thriving bodies of believers whose concentration was on heart and relational transformation as opposed to buildings, superstar preachers, doctrinal differences, denominational competition and traditional worship forms.
About the Author
"Organized hypocrisy, that's all church is." The Rev. Harald Haugan is concerned how people see the church that way. We have to change the perception that church is 'organized religion' therefore something to be avoided. This is a reality he believes can be changed but it has to come from within churches themselves. With over 50 years in the ordained ministry he has observed how many churches have left their biblical roots and compromised with contemporary culture. They tend to look more like inaccessible traditional corporations than interpersonal spiritual bodies openly presenting Jesus Christ.
Having pastored rural and suburban churches in Florida, planted four churches, been chaplain to prep schools in New Hampshire and Connecticut, he has also done exchange work in Norway, traveled through Europe and the Middle East, worked as youth pastor developing outreach through camp and coffee house ministry and in retirement starting new groups and helping struggling congregations.
The author is a 1956 graduate of the University of Florida and an MDiv. seminary graduate from the University of the South in 1959 and did Summer graduate work at the University of Oslo in Norway in 1963. He has also authored 4 other books, Marriage God's Way, The Sermon on the Mount, The Last Teaching of Christ and The Kingdom's Keys, Parables.