They teach us the how-tos of local ministry. The how-tos of the denomination. Jesus taught his disciples the how-tos of the Kingdom, particularly how to connect and work with God in his heavenly realms. This is what the church terribly lacks today. [Photo above by Jo Szczepanska, Unsplash].
To most of us, Jesus' gospel is unseen. Yeah, church people read and memorize passages and pastors preach about them, but most of us don't really see it. It's a sign of a dying people that have been blinded by the god of this world. Paul declared the veiled Gospel in 2 Corinthians 4:3. It's an unseen Gospel. And you'd see why if you watch how churches operate today. Like in seminars.
How-To Formulas
In seminars, they teach us steps and formulas. How to evangelize. How to plant churches. How to worship. How to pray. How to minister to the lost or the sick or the hungry. They teach us steps and procedures, what we should do first and then next, and then the third step and so on. A funny formula invented by man is the prayer formula, particularly following the ACTS acronym. Jesus never did anything like that. He taught his disciples the protocols of heaven.
Jesus taught the protocol of heaven for prayer, showing us that relationship is crucial above all else. "Our Father in heaven," he said. From this, we do the rest. He showed us how we can simply "ask" God directly, and make things short but sincere (so sincere that we have to forgive others their trespass against us).
"Pray to your Father who is unseen." Jesus said. "Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." That is the Kingdom dynamics here, but people miss it altogether even to this day. They treat prayer as a show, and often believe it's the length that matters, "for they think they will be heard because of their many words." Nope, it's relationship. "Our Father..."
So they emphasize the contents rather than the relationship.
And smart Alecks saw something else. They saw a formula for prayer. Your prayer should have the ACTS ingredients, they say. They suggest that each time we pray, we need to adore, confess, give thanks and supplicate. But we never see Jesus use the ACTS formula in his prayers. When he fed the 5,000 he didn't pray using the ACTS formula. He just looked up and thanked the Father.
The protocols of heaven is what so many church people (and leaders) do not understand. They just do ministry as they see fit. Worse, they copy from the world and apply it to ministry--like using sales and marketing principles. I was in this ridiculous pastors' seminar where they taught us how everything in ministry should be according to the SMART principle (especially when setting goals)--specific, measurable, attainable, relevant (some say reasonable), and time-bound (I thought it was time bomb).
The supernatural acts of God in ministry will never fit this SMART thing that smart Alecks believe in. Just look at "measurable" and "attainable," for instance. That's exactly how you put God in a box (and yet you hear them say we should not put God in a box). And goal-setting? Our only business is obey God. God sets the goals of what we can do and achieve. He reveals and we obey. Period. Moses could not decide to go either this or that way. He just followed the cloud. God decided where the Promised Land was.
Jesus' "Seminars"
Jesus did handle some "seminars" but they were very different from what seminars churches have today. An example is John 14. Jesus taught about the Father's house and the only way or path to it. This is so important--and it's far from being basic. Aside from Jesus being the only Way to the Father (and the only Truth and only Life), it teaches how knowing him makes us know the Father as well. This is a Kingdom fundamental we cannot do without (but which the church has been doing without).
Here is the powerful Kingdom principle. Anyone who has seen Jesus has seen the Father. Why? Because (watch this principle closely) Jesus said, "I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me." The same principle should work with us. We are in Christ and Christ is in us. Therefore, anyone who has seen us has seen (or should see) Jesus. Without this, it's impossible to take part in Kingdom building on earth. If you take this to heart, this will revolutionize your faith, worship and relationship with God and how you see yourself.
You mirror Christ. It's no longer you who live but Jesus who lives in you. Thus, the sick should think that by just touching the hem of your garment, they will be made whole--not because of you but because they see Jesus in you. Is this the case in church now? Nope, because the church has not pursued this. In fact, they don't believe this. You talk about it and they belittle you, thinking you're an idiot or a cult. So when someone in church feels sick, he opts to skip church this Sunday because he doesn't see it as a place where the sick gets miraculously healed by just touching garments.
It would be odd to hear someone say in Jesus' time, "I cannot come to Jesus' worship service today because my menstruation keeps flowing."
But church people and leaders don't get this. You look at them and you still see them, not Jesus. For one thing, they still stubbornly stick to their denominations and denominational doctrines. Christ never had them and never taught about them. And church pastors work so hard at becoming true to their denomination's creed. So when you look at them, you see their church denomination, not Jesus. You see a religious clergy doing his denomination's rituals, goals and policies. So people say of them, "He's a Baptist or Methodist or Pentecostal or Nazarene pastor." And they identify themselves the same way.
When Peter looked at Christ, he said "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." When John the baptizer saw Jesus, he said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" They saw nothing of man or of the world in Jesus. They saw only God and His Kingdom in him. This is the kind of seminar churches today need so badly--how people would see the same in them, not their denomination. They need to know how to connect and identify with heaven on a higher level, so that "it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work." Not steps or formulas or strategies or gimmicks. Not hermenuetics or homiletics which are all human formulas perpetuated by the church as things of the Kingdom. Not their clever theology.
"...whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."The Kingdom dynamics of greater things begin with doing the same works Jesus did. THE SAME WORKS. Again, this is the kind of "seminar" the church needs today. No church today follows this course. They're all doing their own works and even copying what they see is effective in the world, paving the way to the modern Babylon system in church. You look at most churches and you see corporations or cause-oriented (or "purpose-driven") groups, not Jesus.
We're given the hint that Christ doing what we ask in his name (to effect the greater things) is predicated on the church doing THE SAME things as Jesus did. This is the only way the greater things will come and church ought to be desperately pursuing after this in these last days. This is what their seminars should be all about. This is the sole purpose that should be driving them.
Then "the Father may be glorified."
UNSEEN GOSPEL: And even if our gospel is unseen, it is unseen to those who are perishing. [2 Corinthians 4.3]
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