Is Church REvitalization Vital to the Life of the Church
In my 40 plus years as a follower of Jesus Christ, I have noticed that we like to use “rewords” in our church conversations such as Repent, Revival, Reform, Renew. The latest of the “rewords” to be pitched to the church is revitalize. Is this just another of those words that is destined to join the family of words we use to attempt to capture the attention and then the heart of believers. This is a critical time in the life of our nation and in the life of the church in the United States of America. Critical times call for critical actions. We most definitely do not need just another word that is destined to fade into the next generation when they find a need for a new buzz word.
The purpose of this blog is to communicate through the logos of the Bible and the English language (Please read my introductory blog outlining the definition of dialogue and what Dia Logos is intended to do. ( https://hillbillyprophet.wordpress.com/ ) In this blog, we will dissect the word revitalize looking first at the prefix, “re”; then at the suffix, “ize”; before examining the core word, vital.
Re is a prefix attached to a loan word making that word to mean again. It means to go back to a beginning point. When we return, we go back to a point where we were before.
I know that many words have multiple meanings and the use of those words are contextual. We will need to keep this aspect of the English language in mind as we dialogue.
So, what happens when we add our suffix “ize” to our root or loan word? The primary function of “ize” is to cause something to become the meaning of the loan word. For example, to digitize something is to make it to be digital. To vitalize something would be to make it to become vital.
If our purpose is to revitalize the church then we would bring the church back to a point of being vital again. Our suppositions are that the church was once vital, has lost whatever vital is, and that we want to bring back those things back. Remember that we are dialoguing on the absolute authority of the Bible and the Sovereignty of God which makes the Church vital in the sense of the universal body of Christ, therefore in this dialogue we will reference the local body of Christ.
Our question now becomes; What does vital mean? The basic root meaning of vital is those things that are absolutely necessary and/or essential.
When someone visits a physician one of the first things that happens is that they take “vitals signs”. That fountain of all knowledge Wikipedia, lists our body’s primary vital signs as; 1. temperature, 2. pulse, 3. respiratory rate, and 4. blood pressure. The church is defined in scripture as a body. (1 Corinthians 12.12) It is the “bride” of Christ. A bride suggests a living organism in a relationship with another living organism. Is there a relationship between vitals for a living physical body and a living spiritual body? If we are seeking to revitalize a living physical body, what are we trying to do? We are attempting to bring it back to a state of good health.
As humans we communicate with words, as Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ we are bound to the Logos. The purpose of this blog is to “dialogue”, therefore, I am asking you to respond to this thought using words. We will, then, build on your responses to shape future dialogues.
The question is what are the vitals signs of a Church? How are those signs expressed in the Logos of God? How are those signs expressed culturally across the United States?
Thank you, and I look forward to a Biblical Dialogue on this and many more issues facing Christian Believers in our world today.
Dios Logos!
In my 40 plus years as a follower of Jesus Christ, I have noticed that we like to use “rewords” in our church conversations such as Repent, Revival, Reform, Renew. The latest of the “rewords” to be pitched to the church is revitalize. Is this just another of those words that is destined to join the family of words we use to attempt to capture the attention and then the heart of believers. This is a critical time in the life of our nation and in the life of the church in the United States of America. Critical times call for critical actions. We most definitely do not need just another word that is destined to fade into the next generation when they find a need for a new buzz word.
The purpose of this blog is to communicate through the logos of the Bible and the English language (Please read my introductory blog outlining the definition of dialogue and what Dia Logos is intended to do. ( https://hillbillyprophet.wordpress.com/ ) In this blog, we will dissect the word revitalize looking first at the prefix, “re”; then at the suffix, “ize”; before examining the core word, vital.
Re is a prefix attached to a loan word making that word to mean again. It means to go back to a beginning point. When we return, we go back to a point where we were before.
I know that many words have multiple meanings and the use of those words are contextual. We will need to keep this aspect of the English language in mind as we dialogue.
So, what happens when we add our suffix “ize” to our root or loan word? The primary function of “ize” is to cause something to become the meaning of the loan word. For example, to digitize something is to make it to be digital. To vitalize something would be to make it to become vital.
If our purpose is to revitalize the church then we would bring the church back to a point of being vital again. Our suppositions are that the church was once vital, has lost whatever vital is, and that we want to bring back those things back. Remember that we are dialoguing on the absolute authority of the Bible and the Sovereignty of God which makes the Church vital in the sense of the universal body of Christ, therefore in this dialogue we will reference the local body of Christ.
Our question now becomes; What does vital mean? The basic root meaning of vital is those things that are absolutely necessary and/or essential.
When someone visits a physician one of the first things that happens is that they take “vitals signs”. That fountain of all knowledge Wikipedia, lists our body’s primary vital signs as; 1. temperature, 2. pulse, 3. respiratory rate, and 4. blood pressure. The church is defined in scripture as a body. (1 Corinthians 12.12) It is the “bride” of Christ. A bride suggests a living organism in a relationship with another living organism. Is there a relationship between vitals for a living physical body and a living spiritual body? If we are seeking to revitalize a living physical body, what are we trying to do? We are attempting to bring it back to a state of good health.
As humans we communicate with words, as Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ we are bound to the Logos. The purpose of this blog is to “dialogue”, therefore, I am asking you to respond to this thought using words. We will, then, build on your responses to shape future dialogues.
The question is what are the vitals signs of a Church? How are those signs expressed in the Logos of God? How are those signs expressed culturally across the United States?
Thank you, and I look forward to a Biblical Dialogue on this and many more issues facing Christian Believers in our world today.
Dios Logos!