So, I’m working through a backlog of old post ideas still. Quiet spells like the one experienced over the last few weeks are not helping me trim down the backlog. The queue to write gets longer and longer… as does the queue of waiting RSS feeds.

Another one from last summer has popped up. Chris, aka Desert Pastor, is one of my favorite bloggers. He often has thoughts the stir my brain and faith, and he’s nurtured a nice little community of conversation in the comments as well. Last summer he wrote this little ditty: ‘In Christ’ or ‘Christ in You’? While there have been many since then I’ve enjoyed, this one in particular stirred thoughts of sufficient quantity to merit a post of my own.

Chris explores this paradox a bit and wonders if evangelicals have gotten off kilter here.

We evangelicals are fairly notorious for giving altar calls and urging people to “invite Jesus into their lives” rather than urging people to begin living “in” Christ.

I’d have to agree with this assessment. Though the language seems to be changing, the stress is still usually placed on the bit that isn’t our doing, the Christ living in us by means of the Spirit. We believe, and the Spirit inhabits… fully and completely. It is neither our business nor within our capability to get more of Christ. Not only does Christ fully reside within us, but his residence is his doing, not ours.

In fact, you might make the argument that Christ by the Spirit is already in us prior to belief, making possible the initial faith and working any and all grace that we have ministered throughout our lives, but that’s not really what I want to go on about.

As I’ve been sitting on this post serendipity has struck. I read Viola’s latest book, God’s Ultimate Passion, and that has shed some light on the phrase “in Christ” for me. While I hope to blog more in depth about the book in the coming weeks, the thrust of it is to lay out God’s purpose and how the church is essential… even central to that purpose. That is why has God chosen to call out a people who would live “in Christ.”

While there are many metaphors used to describe the relationship between God and the church, two seem particularly appropriate for this discussion. These are the body and the vine. If Christ is in us, his metaphoric blood, the Spirit, must nourish and sustain us, just as real blood carries nutrients to the members of our own body. Likewise, the branch must be attached, if it is to receive nutrition from the Vine. A severed limb or pruned branch bears no life.

Being in Christ, then, is primarily about being subject to and dependent upon the Head or Vine

Question: To what extent does our modern reliance on human mediation and institutional programs inhibit our ability to be in Christ, that is to receive nourishment, sustenance and direction directly from Him? Christ is the Head and heart, the source of life for the church; and the Spirit is the blood, the means by which that life is mediated throughout the body. Could we then accurately describe our institutions as life support, an artificial means of sustaining and nurturing life, frequently useful, sometimes necessary (perhaps) but never a replacement for real life?

Might our institutions and their programs better serve Christ by becoming something else for the body? Rather than life support, could they be our gymnasiums or something else that assists life without sustaining it? Or is this impossible? Is our nature - even one renewed by Christ within - unable to avoid shifting dependence from the Head and Vine and onto the artificial systems that are intended only to assist?

Update: Just published my post and came across this from Roger at House Church Blog that speaks to my questions. Quoting Alan Hirsch’s newest book, The Forgotten Ways:

Didn’t church-growth proponents explicitly teach us to mimic the shopping mall and apply it to the church? In this they were sincere, but they must have been unaware of the ramifications of this approach, because in the end the medium always becomes the message. They were unaware of the latent virus in the model itself—that of consumerism and the sins of the middle class. Much of what can be tagged “consumerist middle class” is built on the ideals of comfort and convenience (consumerism), and of safety and security (middle class).

paradox | heart | vine