Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

P ART II: T HEOLOGICAL AND M ISSIOLOGICAL P RINCIPLES AND I NSIGHTS • 201

2. The Church is the community where God’s forgiveness and healing are experienced by the blood in the authority of Jesus Christ. Matt. 18.17-20 (NKJV) – And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them. 3. The Church as the physical gathering of the Body of Christ; salvation is merely incorporation by faith and the Spirit into the Church. Rom. 12.3-5 (NIV) – For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 1 Cor. 12.12-13 (NKJV) – For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.

1 Cor. 12.27 (NIV) – Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

B. The Church is the primary locus of the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.

1. The Holy Spirit dwells in the Church as the supreme sign of God’s Kingdom present in our age.

Acts 2.14-21 (NKJV) – But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my