A few weeks ago, Rick and I were invited to speak at the combined men's and women's fellowship meeting at a Baptist church in Phoenix called the Christian Worship Tabernacle.This is a church that grew in a space of a decade from a tent and few members to a larger temporary structure, which they have outgrown.They will soon move into their more spacious church building with 300 members.We presented the opportunities that we offer for church members to be trained for holistic lay health screening and education to the 60 people from the Christian Worship Tabernacle who were present.After we spoke, about 20 people came up to the front of the church and requested that Rick and I lay hands on them and pray for them.Rick and I had never been in a service where we were asked to pray for the healing of this many people.But, we went before the Lord with our brothers and sisters with repentant and faithful hearts believing that God would continue to provide exactly what was needed.As we listened to the health concerns that people requested us to pray for, I was struck by the similarity of people's concerns here to my patients in Michigan.I could tell that, just like in my previous office private practice, most of the physical complaints were wholly or in part to due marred relationships, depression, despair, grief, loneliness, anxiety and stress and could be prevented, healed or significantly improved by lifestyle changes, the Gospel and a loving church family.What was reinforced for me that evening was that members of that congregation could be equipped to be the healing body of Christ to each other and to the larger community.Christ had given talents, love and compassion to the church to heal and prevent many pains and physical ailments.

After the service, we gathered for a meal.We learned that the man who organized the evening's service had converted from Hinduism about 5 years ago.He and his wife had lost 3 of their 6 children because of a rare liver disorder.Partly because they experienced miracles such as the immediate cessation of bleeding on multiple occasions when they prayed in the name of Jesus for their third son, they converted to Christianity.

I reflect on this church and it makes me think of what American Baptist churches must have been like in the 1800s in Michigan.This was a time when they were growing in numbers and erecting new buildings just like our South African Indian brothers and sisters at the Christian Worship Tabernacle are doing now.I wonder what the Christian Worship Tabernacle will be like in 200 years.I suspect that the building will still be there.But what will the congregation be like?I think back about 2000 years and picture the church described in Acts 2:46 – 47:"Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all people.And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."Buildings can stand on a stone foundation but the living body of Christ, the church, cannot.The body of Christ must renew its foundation on hearts of flesh every generation.Each generation must be "cut to the heart" by the realization that each one of us has crucified Jesus and that despite our best efforts we are not acceptable in God's sight due to our sin.We must then ask, as the people in Acts 2:37 did, "What shall we do?"Some of us today might guess that the answer Peter gave at that point involved instructions on how to form a church, train church leaders and perhaps how to structure and manage church growth.But the people in the crowd described in Acts 2 were not asking how they might form a church with lots of people eagerly joining.They weren't thinking of a church at all but realized in the depths of their hearts that they had committed a terrible sin in crucifying Jesus and wanted to know what they could do.The answer that Peter gave them in verses 38 – 39 was this, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – all whom the Lord our God will call."These are the verses which describe the people on whose hearts the living body of Christ is built.Each of us is invited to accept the following promise:Repent of your sins and give your entire life over to the Lordship of Jesus, accept the forgiveness of sins through the grace of Jesus Christ and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.The church is built on hearts that have accepted that promise in each generation.

Sometimes we think that it is good enough that generations ago people accepted that promise but that somehow we have advanced beyond that elementary Christianity.But God cannot build his living church on hearts of stone that will not be cut by the realization of the fundamental problem of human sin which blocks our relationship with God but was overcome by Christ.It is only from obedient and repentant hearts that God can bless with His Holy Spirit and bring forth a living church.We have to quit reaching for church growth gimmicks and our quest to put obviously dying churches on complicated worldly life support systems.What we must do is to put our lives under the Lordship of Christ and use the Bible as a practical handbook for our daily living no matter how hard it is and how different it makes us from the people in the world around us.The Bible is not a set of outdated theoretical guidelines that we can bend and twist to whatever suits us in the year 2004.Rather we must step back and come to terms with the fact that we crucified Jesus and ask, "What shall we do?" Because once we have repented and turned our lives completely over to Jesus then we have been promised that we will receive the Holy Spirit.After that, everything else will follow in accordance with God's will with God leading every step of the way.Why should we settle for anything less than the experience of the early church and the Christian Worship Tabernacle when the promise relayed by Peter is for us too?However, the best church growth books and even the Bible itself will do little for people with hearts of stone that will not be cut.

"I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.They will be my people, and I will be their God."Ezekiel 11:19 – 20

Yours in Christ,

Anita Gutierrez