What makes us church.

‘… let us focus on the promise of God to take us into the future weeks and months, keeping our eyes fixed too on the promise of heaven to come. And let us also make sure that we do that together, with all our differences of background, expectations, hopes and fears, committing ourselves to one another and to the work that he would have us do together.’
That was how I ended last month’s chaplain’s letter to you. The faith that sustains us is not just something personal (though it must be that), but something we do together as the church. It’s us as ‘church’ that will concern us in our Sunday morning sermons on 1 Thessalonians. That letter begins with a reminder of what above all makes us church.
‘To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’ 1 Thess 1.1
We are looking at it to see what the Lord is saying to ‘Fontainebleau Anglican Church in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.’
That is our identity; not that we are all in Fontainebleau on Sunday mornings - after all we aren’t!; not that we are all Anglican – we’re not; not that we are all first-language English-Speaking – parce que ce n’est pas vrai! Our identity as a church is first and foremost that we are in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The word translated ‘church’, with all the institutional overtones that that word has taken to itself, simply means assembly or gathering. What makes our kind, the ‘church’ kind of assembly different is the realm in which it lives. We, or most of us, live in the Seine et Marne. We live in houses and apartments. But the idea that Paul has here is more that of the branch living in the tree, the eye living in the body. We dwell in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and we draw our life from him, our purpose from him, our very existence from him. The flip side of that is that just as a vine branch dies when it is taken away from the vine, so a church becomes just like any other kind of assembly or gathering if it draws away from being in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ; not very different from a rugby club or a parent-teacher association.
It must therefore be our firm desire to remain in him; to remain part of him, drawing our life and our energy from him by remaining faithful to his word, faithful in seeking his will and his strength in prayer, faithful in our living lives that submitted to his will.
Will you join me in praying that we will be that and do that as the Fontainebleau Anglican Assembly in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we will truly be the Fontainebleau Anglican Church?
With my love and prayer for us all in the Lord Jesus Christ.

John Wilkinson