Introduction:
The word “Ekklesia” is a Greek word, meaning “gathering of those summoned”, which literally means “those called out” and understood as “Church” or “Assembly” or democratically elected parliament, or the political assembly of citizens of an ancient Greek state, or “meeting”, especially a religious congregation. A better translation of “Ekklesia” would be “community”. Hence, “Ekklesia” is a community, a community of chosen people for a purpose.
Ekklesia is the Greek word that has been translated in the Bible as "church," 108 times.The word ekklesia was a political term, not a religious term. Jesus was the King and the Bible used the term ekklesia for a good reason. In classical Greek "ekklesia" meant "an assembly of citizens summoned by the crier, the legislative assembly."
People all over the world see “The Church” not only as the house of God where the presence of the Almighty dwells, but also as the fulcrum of their fellowship life and diaconal intervention in society. Being part of the Church and thus the kingdom experience give meaning and direction to the life of many people. The Church has always existed in context, and the social milieu has always influenced the way the Church find its beings. On the other hand, the Church has also been a strong influence in defining how society sees itself and its responsibility, especially for those living on the margins of society.
In this paper, we shall try to understand the purpose, responsibility and duty of Christian communities: Ekklesia as community of Communities.
The Praxis of Community:
The concept of community (koinonia) was signified by the pronounce “one another” (allelon) by the post-Easter church, especially in the Pauline mission communities. They stressed the togetherness of Jews and Gentiles, slave and free, man and woman as well as the formula of “build one another up” (1 Thess. 5:11). Paul uses another concept. “edification” (oikodomia), referring to the building up of the local communities. Paul is aware of the responsibility of all for one another (1 Cor. 14:2-6; 14:26) to build up the community through greeting, encouraging, consoling, admonishing, teaching, caring, and waiting for one another. Paul lists the essential requirement of community life, such as, the need to live in harmony with one another (1 Cor. 12:25), to build up one another (Rom 12:16), to have the same care for one another (1 Cor. 12:25), to build up one another (1 Thess. 5:11) and to admonish one another (Rom 15:14). It also meant that the courage to admonish one another fraternally and the humility to let oneself be corrected are among the most certain signs of the presence and consciousness of authentic community.
It is a privilege to be a part of the Church. The called-out community has many responsibilities outside but unless it understand its responsibility within, it cannot be effective in its mission outside.
Ekklesia as Congregation, Community and Church:
Congregation means both actual process of congregating and the congregated community itself. The community is the constant source of the constantly repeated event of congregating. In many languages the word “church” is still used today in the sense of the act of coming together. “Congregation”, “Community” and “Church” are not mutually exclusive terms, but should be seen as interconnected. The undeniable fact that the New Testament itself always uses the same word “Ekklesis” where we would say “Congregation”, “Community” or “Church”. The three words are not in competition, but complement one another in translating the very rich and many-faceted “Ekklesia”.
“Congregation” expresses the fact that the Ekklesis is never merely a static institution, but one that exist through the repeated event of a concrete coming together.“Community” emphasizes that the Ekklesia is never merely an abstract and distant superorganization of functionaries set above the concretely congregated community, but is a fellowship of people who meet regularly at a given place and a given time for a given purpose.“Church”makes it plain that Ekklesia is never merely a disconnected jumble of isolated and self-sufficient religious groups, but the members, united through their individual service, of an embracing fellowship.
Ekklesia as a Movement:
Ekklesia as a community is also an institution that practices and promotes democracy, justice and equality among the people. It negates all manifestation of dominion and exclusion. But it does not mean that Ekklesia should be or its movement is in agitating form like other social movements. It is a movement started by God and its principle is solely based on God’s will revealed through His word.
C. Gene Wilkes entitled his book as, “Ekklesia:The Unstoppable Movement of God”. The Church is the local and global body of believers founded on God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and commissioned to proclaim His true identity to the world. As Ekklesia is a community, We must not think of “church ministry" as belonging only to preachers and notable Christian leaders. Its movement should be involved by every member.
Ultimately, The Church is God's Plan for taking the gospel to the entire world. By building up its members in Christ’s likeness through the instruction of God's Word, fellowship, service, worship, and prayer, the Church becomes an unstoppable force when it comes to glorifying God. It is crucial to look at it not just as a local institution (church) but as the global body made up of all believers (Church). Only with Christ as the foundation can a church and the Church be effective.
Ekklesia: The need for community:
Marginal people in community have very particular needs. They are wounded and lack self-confidence; they are often despairing. They can be buffeted by terrible anguish, which drives them to attack others or themselves in ways that even they cannot understand. If they are to refind hope, marginal people have to feel loved and accepted. It is not simply through being welcome that they will rediscover their own value and capacities for positive action.They need people who will listen to them, with all their wound and needs, and sense what they really want. This demands time and patience, because they are afraid of revealing themselves and won’t open up to just anyone.
There are so many people who live alone, crushed by their loneliness. It is obvious that so much solitude can drive people off the rails,to depression or alcoholism. More and more people seem to have lost their balance because their family life has been unhappy. There are so many who are lost, taking drugs, turning to delinquency or just hiding themselves in a world of rock music, films and distractions; there are so many who are looking for a sense of belonging and a meaning to their lives. In years to come, we are going to need many small communities which will welcome lost and lonely people and who are excluded base on caste, race or language, offering them a new form of family and a sense of belonging. In the past, Christians who wanted follow Jesus opened hospitals and schools. Now that there are so many of these Christians must commit themselves to the new communities of welcome, to live with people who have no other family, and to show them that they are loved and can grow to greater freedom and that they, inturn, can love and give life to others.
In this regards, every Christian as a part of a community has a very important role to play. We must not think of “ministry" as belonging only to preachers and notable Christian leaders.Every Christian in the entire church of Jesus Christ has a ministry, and the church of Jesus will not reach maturity until the entire church is playing a part in building the church up in love.
There are two aspects to the matters which we must consider: 1. Every Christian has gift and abilities from God for the service of the Church or community. 2. The second aspect is that the preaching ministers are trainers of the entire church of Jesus Christ.
We must focus our sights on the calling of the Church. It is a calling to maturity, a maturity of faith, a maturity of great love. It is important to see that the final goal is love or charity. The whole body “builds itself up in love”. This is the nature of the final vision: it is a call to be loving everyone everywhere.
Using the analogy of the body (1 Corinthians 12:12-31), Paul emphasizes the importance of each church member. If a seemingly insignificant part is taken away, the whole body becomes less effective. Thinking that your gift is more important than someone else’s is spiritual pride. We should not look down on those who seem unimportant, and we should not be jealous of others who have impressive gifts. Instead, we should use the gifts we have been given and encourage others to use theirs. If we don’t, the body of believers will be less effective.
Ekklesia as community of Communities:
The union of Churches achieved (in India) so far is the result of the basic unity reached in doctrinal matters. However, the question remains whether the united Churches achieved any success in overcoming barriers based on caste, race or language, which threatened the unity of the Church life.
One of the Church’s important goal and mission should now be to build an inclusive liberative community. Inclusiveness should not end within the boundary of the local Church and community. But it should rather be borderless and serve as a community of communities. It other words the responsibility, function, policy andvision of the localcommunity or church should be for communities outside the Church – A community for the communities.
The Church should be both a theological expression and a sociological reality. It is a community of people in concrete situations of life. Thus, there is a need to continually search for authenticity, credibility, constant reformation and reformulation within and outside the Church in the light of the contemporary situations.
The collaboration with other religions is filled with some theological question and practical suggestion. Theological question are: Can religions encounter one another? Is there are common base for them to work together? If so, with what goal? Do the religions practiced by the followers of other faiths reflect the values of the kingdom of God? Answers to these questions will help the bishops and the Christians to seek a common basis and goal for collaboration.
Looking from the Christological point of view the two level have one common meeting point in the Reign of God. In the New Testament, we understand that these two levels are very harmoniously blended and dynamically active in the life of Jesus in whom the Reign of God has its beginning. Jesus had, on the one hand the “mountain experience” – “his prayer” (Mt 14:23; Mk 6:46; Jn 6:15) – “his helplessness” (Mk 14:36), in which, he experienced God as ABBA, Father; and on the other hand, the “market experience” – “the helplessness of the people” (mt 9:36), for whom he has universal compassion. It is in their helplessness that he hears the call of his father to save them. As a response, he preached and practiced compassion – the love of neighbor. Although he himself was a master and lord, he served others. He took the role of a humble servant and opted to serve the downtrodden of the society which brought him accusations, condemnation, suffering and lastly death. He, who integrates both the mountain and market experiences can be a basis for all religions to come together, work and serve together.
Conclusion:
Our paper has explored various processes related to Ekklesia and its milieu. In this process, we have tried to explore the consciousness and self-understanding of Ekklesia as a community of communities. We have propose Ekklesia as an unlimited community without borders, cross-culture, which is inclusive and not exclusive in its nature. Nevertheless, being inclusive doesn’t mean we should compromise with our faith and belief. It is solely for the purpose and preservation of the Body of Christ to dwell in unity and in oneness and voluntarily enforcing ourselves to the unstoppable movement of God.
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