The Company of the Committed
by Elton Trueblood
Summary
“The Church of Jesus Christ is a sleeping giant. Its unrealized potential is almost staggering to contemplate.”
The modern church as institution invests enormous amounts of time, energy, and resources into maintaining ornate buildings and putting on one-hour, weekly performances that have come to be known as worship services. Showing up for the Sunday service is basically all that is expected of church members, and even that has largely become optional.
Elton Trueblood argues that this experience of church is a far cry from the training, equipping, and spurring-on that Jesus intended His Church to be for His disciple-apostles. Instead the Church is meant to be the Company of the Committed, with church buildings serving as the headquarters from which soldiers go forth to fight the battles of the world, carrying out the orders of their Commander-in-Chief.
Favorite Quotes
“The Church is like a ship on whose deck festivities are still kept up and glorious music is heard, while deep below the waterline a leak has been sprung and masses of water are pouring in, so that the vessel is setting hourly lower though the pumps are manned day and night.”
Whether our religion is segregated from common life by being limited geographically (i.e. to a religious building), or temporally (by undue emphasis on one hour a week, which is usually on Sunday morning), or limited in personnel (by the assumption that religion is the responsibility of a special professional class called clergy), the damaging effect is the same.”
“The Company of Jesus is not people streaming to a shrine; and it is not people making up an audience for a speaker; it is laborers engaged in the harvesting task of reaching their perplexed and seeking brethren with something so vital that, if it is received, it will change their lives.”
“It was the vocation of Christ to bear witness to the truth; it is our vocation to bear witness to Him.”
If God, as we believe, is truly revealed in the life of Christ, the most important thing to Him is the creation of centers of loving fellowship, which in turn infect the world. Whether the world can be redeemed in this way we do not know, but it is at least clear that there is no other way.”
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