by Ben Jiménez
Something to do with Jesus
Someone recently asked on our Google maps profile, “what type of denomination is the Kaleo church?” To what a kind “local guide” responded, “Not sure but it has somthin [sic] to do with Jesus.”
I would say, that’s a bit of an understatement. At Kaleo Church we are all about Jesus. It probably doesn’t help that our church sign only says Kaleo(1).
That’s a bit cryptic if you ask me. In fact, we have folks who are now a part of our church that drove past our building for years before realizing we were a Christian church. I’ve even had someone say they thought it was a mosque. We are working on improving our signs.
To give you, dear inquirer, and you as well, dear regular member of our church family, a better idea of who we are as a church, I’d like to point you to our somewhat freshly written mission statement. While it is hard to synthesize who we are as a church in a short sentence such as this, we believe that this statement gets to the heart of who we are. At Kaleo we are a people who follow Jesus and promote his universal kingdom in every sphere of life.
Allow me to break this down for you.
Jesus
To respond to the Google inquirer, “we are all about Jesus.” We are distinctly Christian. Jesus Christ is the object of our faith, the one we worship, and the one we follow. He is the hero of the story of redemption.
This is not to negate the other two persons of the trinity. We absolutely believe in, and worship the Father and the Holy Spirit. But the one we follow is Jesus because he is the one through whom the Father has spoken to us. He is the one whom the Father appointed heir of all things. He is the one through whom he created the world. “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Jesus is the one who cleansed us from our sins by his death on the cross. And after he died on the cross, he resurrected, was risen by the Spirit of God, and ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high (cf. Hebrews 1:1-3). So, yup. It’s a bit more than just having something to do with Jesus.
Follow
Because we understand that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, the perfect human, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, we follow him. In fact, he called us, and anyone who would be his disciple, to follow him.
In Luke 9:23-26 Jesus makes an invitation to the broader group of people who were “following” him to actually follow him. He explains exactly what he means by “follow.” To follow Jesus means to say no to yourself, and to die to yourself, and go after Jesus. I often hear people talk about carrying your own cross. But to many, carrying your cross simply means enduring whatever suffering life brings your way. Carrying your cross actually means to pick up your instrument of death, and crucify yourself with Jesus, every day. Carrying your cross means dying to yourself and living a life devoted to following Jesus.
The Christian life is a life of following, imitating, learning from, looking to, abiding, relying on Jesus. If you are a Christian, this means that you are a disciple and follower of Jesus.
We, Kaleo, want to be a church known for how closely we follow Jesus. Our main goal is not to be known for our specific denomination, what spiritual gifts we have, how wise we are, how many people are saved through our ministry, or our political inclination, etc. Rather, we want to be known as a church that follows Jesus.
Promote
To promote something means to further the progress of it. We like the word promote because it covers a lot of ground. Our goal is not limited to preaching the Kingdom of God. Our goal is to promote it, both in word and in action. Our aim is to make decisions, strategize, act, live in such a way that the furthering of the kingdom is our top priority.
I wrote on this before. But in short, the purpose of the church is not to hide until Jesus returns. The church was left here as a sign that points to the kingdom of God. We were given the command to “go,” not to “stay.” To go and make disciples of all nations.
Our job is to promote the Kingdom of God to the world in everything we do. Not just on Sundays, not just during evangelistic events. We promote the kingship of Jesus with our conduct among unbelievers, we promote it in the way we view politics, in the way we raise our children, we promote Jesus’ kingdom by how we treat our spouse, how we do our work, etc. And yes, of course we promote it with our words. Words are essential for the promotion of God’s kingdom. Supposedly, Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the gospel. If necessary, use words.” That would be like saying, “Feed the hungry. If necessary, use food.” In order to promote the kingdom of God we must use words in addition to our conduct.
Universal kingdom
Jesus is Lord; he is King. That’s the claim that Christians have been willing to die for through the history of the church. Jesus is Lord, not Caesar, not anything or anyone else. The kingdom of Jesus is universal. After Jesus was risen from the dead, he ascended and was seated at the right hand of God (cf. Ephesians 1:20-23). “He must reign until he has put all of his enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25). He is king not just in heaven but on earth.
Because Jesus is king we submit to him, we promote his kingdom as ambassadors declaring that Jesus is Lord, we serve him as his subjects, loving and serving, even our enemies, we fight as his soldiers, fighting for the truth of God, waging war against the spiritual forces of darkness. Jesus the King is worth it.
Every sphere of life
Unfortunately, many Christians have relegated the authority of Jesus to only one small aspect of our lives; our religious life. We’ve made a false distinction between the “spiritual” and the “secular.” But when we understand that Jesus is Lord of all, then we will realize that being a follower of Jesus means promoting his kingdom in every sphere. Jesus said, “all authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18).
Abraham Kuyper said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’” Jesus is king over our individual lives, over our family life, over our church life, over government. He is king over all. And therefore we live within those spheres with the presupposition that they all belong to Jesus.
Conclusion
And that’s why, we follow him, and promote his universal kingdom in every sphere of life. If you want to come follow Jesus with us and promote his rule and reign, feel free to visit one of our Sunday gatherings at 4:00 PM on 101 S H St. Aberdeen, WA.
(1)By the way, Kaleo is a Koine Greek word that means “to call.” We believe that the church is a people that God has called “out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).