DNA

Neil Cole makes an interesting claim in ‘Organic Church’:

“Every aspect of the Body of Christ should consist of: Divine Truth, Nurturing relationships, and Apostolic Mission. The key is not in having a separate ministry committee or program to handle each area. DNA must be whole, intact, and in every cell. In other words, every meeting, every ministry, every disciple must have all three components at the same time.”

I have grown up my whole life in “the Church”, and yet I had never heard this claim until reading Cole’s book. More than anything, I guess the simplicity and “Duh” factor of his statement really jumped out at me. I found myself thinking, “Of course...how could I have missed this?”

I suppose you could call me a willing victim of the norm, or a product of the system, but I have regularly separated the three parts of the DNA as such:
Divine truth: church sermons or reading the Bible on my own
Nurturing relationships: small group Bible study where authenticity is a high value
Apostolic mission: either an outreach program or going out sharing my faith

In my experience, the first thing to go is the apostolic mission. We tend to juxtapose apostolic, which literally means “sent as a representative with a message” (Organic Church), into meaning “get others to come to us”. (See previous blog entry: the Wrong Questions) It is a very simple yet profound concept to think that every part of our faith, and every person with faith, should not unravel the DNA, but rather, live out all three aspects simultaneously.

The more that I have processed Cole’s insights the more I am convinced that he’s on to something. The DNA is a basic description of Christianity- to remove any one part of the equation is to take away a fundamental element of our faith. And just like DNA, when you remove one strand you end up with something entirely different than what you started with. When I have Small group that isn’t centered on Divine truth in God’s word I've missed it. If that same group isn’t living out an Apostolic mission I've missed it too.

Oops.

-Ethan Wiekamp