{"id":705,"date":"2007-07-31T21:16:53","date_gmt":"2007-07-31T21:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/07\/marty_wooten.shtml"},"modified":"2021-05-29T02:45:33","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T02:45:33","slug":"marty_wooten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/07\/marty_wooten.shtml","title":{"rendered":"“The Central Purpose of a Fellowship”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marty Wooten, a one time ICOC teacher and bigwig, has recently joined Kip’s LA church. I found it surprising and a little disappointing, but it may be a good thing after all. Marty may be the balance that Kip needs. Marty seems more thoughtful and introspective while Kip is zealous and impulsive. Maybe, as Marty has acknowledged, they can help balance each other out with each’s weaknesses being complimented be the other’s strength.
\nBut that’s not the point of this post. What I wanted to write about was something he wrote in his part 2<\/a> of why he’s joined Kip’s church:<\/p>\n

If the central purpose of a fellowship is to impact the world for Christ, then unity is an absolute necessity for success (John 17); unity within an individual church and between a larger fellowship of churches must take place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He’s making a point that Kip makes a lot in this article. Churches need relationships with other churches if we are to be about our main mission, seeking and saving the lost. I don’t take issue with relationships between churches being needed and good (he speaks of it in a way that I can better accept than what Kip usually says). My concern is with the premise that leads to the conclusion:<\/p>\n

If the central purpose of a fellowship is to impact the world for Christ<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe I’m a heretic, but is that really the central purpose of a fellowship? Certainly it is one of the purposes of a fellowship, and even an important one, but “the central purpose”? I don’t think so.
\nI’m not sure how I’d word it (help me out here), but Jesus told us that loving God and loving others were most important (in that order). Sharing the gospel and evangelism (what he’s getting at if you read the article) are part of doing that (never mind the high minded wording of ‘impacting the world’), but not all of it. Certainly, seeking and saving are not our central purpose, but part of it.
\nIsn’t this one of the things that got the ICOC in trouble? We assumed Jesus’ mission (seek and save the lost) was to be our mission. If that is true, then that will lead us to a lot of things. Door knocking, jumping in front of folks on the street to invite them to church, over emphasis on stats and growth and an unhealthy church to church interdependence.
\nI think the primary mission of the church is simply to love. Love God passionately, love each other deeply and love everyone else as we do ourselves. If we do, we will reach out to other churches, we will evangelize, and do so cooperatively and we will serve and care for those in need. We will be a light in the darkness, whether that darkness is sin, sickness or poverty.
\nWhat do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marty Wooten, a one time ICOC teacher and bigwig, has recently joined Kip’s LA church. I found it surprising and a little disappointing, but it may be a good thingRead More “The Central Purpose of a Fellowship”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n"The Central Purpose of a Fellowship" - salguod.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/07\/marty_wooten.shtml\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""The Central Purpose of a Fellowship" - salguod.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Marty Wooten, a one time ICOC teacher and bigwig, has recently joined Kip’s LA church. 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So far, only one has signed onto the LA proposal (more on that later.) I must say, overall I am encouraged. What I feared might become a landslide into the past does not seem to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "God and Church"","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":391,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/10\/disconnect.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":705,"position":1},"title":"Disconnect","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"October 14, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's pretend a minute, OK? Pretend that you are the leader of a moderate sized church. Pretend that you are well known in your fellowship of churches. In fact you were once the leader of said fellowship and are largely credited with being its founder. 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He stated in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "God and Church"","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":375,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/08\/sigh_part_ii.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":705,"position":3},"title":"[Sigh – Part II]","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"August 29, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"While I don't think it's a direct response to Kip's 'Portland Story', this was posted on Saturday from the LA ICoC. (BTW - You can follow some of the news on Kip's 'calling of the remnant' and the fallout and responses at both the suddenly renewed, 'outsider' run icocnews and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "God and Church"","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":551,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/09\/milestones.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":705,"position":4},"title":"Milestones","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"September 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I just noticed that I passed a couple of blogging milestones this week. My last QT entry was my 500th post here at salguod.net and Kieth's confession on my New Banner post was comment #1,500. Pretty cool, eh? That also means that my comments per post ratio is 3:1, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Salguod.net stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Salguod.net stuff","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/salguod-net-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":389,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/09\/dj_on_church_un.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":705,"position":5},"title":"DJ on Church Unity","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"September 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I know I said I would be rather quiet for a while, but I just spent my lunch hour reading an excellent article and thought I should share it with you. Douglas Jacoby has displayed on his web site a link to an article entitled Unity on Three Levels for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "God and Church"","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1575,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions\/1575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}