God’s Ultimate Passion, Family and Body: An Interview with Frank Viola  

In this last section of God’s Ultimate Passion, you speak a great deal about the church being the family of God the Father. How can we reorient our churches to be more like families (in the positive sense) and less like Fortune 500 companies or dysfunctional families, which tend to be insular bless-me clubs? 

Frank: I think a key ingredient is to understand what the church as family looks like and how it operates in the earth. The New Testament as well as early church history gives us a decent glimpse. In the book, I seek to put a microscope on that glimpse and blow it up. 

To my mind at least, one of the major things that chokes the family life of the church is the institutional structure found in most present-day churches. That structure is a cross between a business corporation and a spectator event. It’s not conducive for the relational, participatory, and organic elements that mark healthy family life. Likewise, hierarchical, top-down, chain-of-command leadership structures kill the church’s familial dimensions. And the typical audience church “service” as a spectator sport inhibits face-to-face community. 

Few Christians would disagree that the church is a family and not a business. Yet if we are honest, we’ll be forced to admit that most churches operate as businesses and not as families. 

If I can be candid, I find it amazing how some Christians are clear thinking and quick to reconsider inherited theological views and practices on the mission of the Christian life that are rooted in human tradition, conflicting with the biblical story . . . yet when it comes to those human traditions concerning the practice of the church, they dig their heels in and defend those traditions against any voice that would expose or challenge it against the biblical story. 

Mike: What do you mean, exactly?  

Frank: Many Christians today believe that the church has over-adapted to modern Western culture in its theology. But they don’t seem to notice (or care) that it has also over-adapted to modern Western culture in its practices. 

To me, this is a double standard. If we are going to rethink, reimagine, and deconstruct the modern Western influences on the church using the biblical narrative as an essential guidepost, it should be across the board. Church practices included. As John Stott once put it, “The hallmark of an authentic evangelicalism is not the uncritical repetition of old traditions, but the willingness to submit every tradition, however ancient, to fresh Biblical scrutiny and, if necessary, reform.” 

In short, I believe there’s a great need to return to an organic expression of church life. Significantly, the metaphor that dominates that expression is the family. The New Testament authors use the family metaphor for the church far more frequently than any other. 

Mike: Is anyone else saying this these days besides “house church” people?  

Frank: Well, first off, I wouldn’t consider myself a “house church” person. In my experience, many “house churches” are not organic nor do they express the family of God. And many are not familiar with the idea that God has an eternal purpose, which is the reason for any church to exist.

Some of the greatest theologians of our time—Stanley Grenz (Created for Community; A Theology of the Community of God), Kevin Giles (The Trinity and Subordination; Jesus and the Father), Wolfhart Pannenberg (Systemaitc Theology), Jurgen Moltmann (The Trinity and the Kingdom), and Miroslav Volf (After Our Likeness; God’s Life in Trinity) being among them—have done superb work in demonstrating a core truth: Namely, that the church is rooted in the eternal Godhead.  

For me, this core truth takes us down a very radical path as it concerns church practice. I believe that the Triune God is the paradigm for the church’s organic expression. As such, the New Testament is merely a record of what that expression looks like when it hits the visible realm.  

Therefore, if we take the Triune God as the model and fountainhead for our church life, our churches will look a whole lot more like an extended family and face-to-face community than a business corporation or a spectator event. 

Mike: Switching gears to the “Body of Christ”—wow! You make the audacious claim that as Jesus was, so we are…and more! You say that John 15’s analogy of the branch and the tree is instructive here; though there is distinction, there is no separation. Care to unpack that?  

Frank: In the third section of the book, I unpack the theme of “the Body” through the entire New Testament in narrative chronological order. In so doing, I seek to demonstrate that Jesus Christ doesn’t separate Himself from His church. While He is distinct from it (He’s the Head of the Body), He by no means separates Himself from it. In many places in the New Testament, it’s as if He doesn’t distinguish Himself from His church at all.  

Let me give just a few examples from the book of Acts. Luke uses the same exact language to describe the birth of the church in Acts 2 as he does when he describes the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Point: Luke envisioned the birth of the church as the second incarnation of Jesus Christ.  

In the opening verses of Acts, Luke states his purpose for writing, saying that he wrote his Gospel to tell the story of all that Jesus “began” to do and teach. His purpose in writing Acts was to tell the story of what Jesus “continued” to do and teach through His Body.  

Throughout the entire book of Acts, Luke exchanges the phrases “and some were added to the Lord” with “and some were added to the church.” This demonstrates that in Luke’s mind, Christ and the church are inseparable. Saul of Tarsus’ dramatic experience on the road to Damascus is another example. While Saul was persecuting the church in Jerusalem, Jesus said to him, “Why are you persecuting me?” These are just a few examples in Acts. I follow this same thread throughout the entire New Testament without break. 

Mike: “The Body of Christ: It’s More Than Just a Good Idea!”  

Frank: Right. As I seek to unveil this spiritual reality to others in person, I discover one common thing time and time again. Most Christians take “the body of Christ” as a common metaphor or a sterile doctrine. But it has no staggering implications on how they live, how they see themselves, how they see God, or how they see their fellow Christians. Nor does it have much of an influence on how they practice church.  

On the other hand, a revelation of what the body of Christ really is in the eyes of God constitutes no small revolution in the Christian life. It’s a life-changing event. And it’s a major piece of God’s ultimate passion.  

Mike: Just as in the dimension of the Bride of Christ as female, you see in the Body of Christ the “one new man,” which you envision as a new species entering and flourishing here, bringing heaven to earth. This is a potentially volatile question, but—spiritually speaking—what do you see as the overlaps and the differences between the “masculine” and “feminine” ways of the Church’s functioning? 

Frank: I’m not sure how to answer your question, but I’ll take a stab at it. As the Bride, the church is swept up in the sacred romance of the ages. As such, she is to discover how to receive the love of Christ and return it back to Him. This can be a very practical thing. It’s not just good theology. 

In my experience, our sisters in Christ teach us how to do this well. As a general rule, they know how to love God from the heart and be sensitive to Him better than us men. On the other hand, the church is also a fighting army who wages war against God’s enemy in times of spiritual warfare.  

To my mind, it’s vital that the church allow both men and women to freely function, thereby showing us all aspects of the counterpart of Jesus Christ. 

Mike: You see our existence as the new man being a re-incarnation of God in Christ, with a message that—to quote from God’s Ultimate Passion—is “deeply challenging. It confronts the status quo. It flies in the face of all cherished tradition—be it political, social, or religious. More surprising, [this new man] becomes the champion of outcasts, some of which are notorious. He gravitates toward the marginalized, the poor, the oppressed, and the down-trodden…the ‘scum of the earth,’ if you will. His message is scandalously inclusive. It exudes no one, except for those who deliberately resist it’s radical inclusivity.” Wow, Frank! I want to become part of this kind of community! 

Frank: From God’s standpoint, you have already been born into such a community. (The new birth initiates us into it.) However, you may or may not be part of a local fellowship of believers that is experiencing or expressing that reality.  

The reality of the body of Christ and the family of God is one thing. But the practical expression of it is quite another.  

An important question that must be answered is: How do we make the vision of God’s ultimate passion—His eternal purpose—a concrete, livable, experiential reality on this earth in our local assemblies?  

Mike: Well…have you come up with any answers? 

Frank: Some. After twenty years of gathering with Christians outside traditional church structures, I’ve discovered some of the ingredients that seem to foster church life that reflects God’s ultimate purpose. But I’m still exploring and seeking solutions to those problems that seek to hinder it. 

I’d love to spend one-on-one time with every seeking heart and group of Christians who are pondering similar questions so we can hash things out together. And in fact I do spend a good deal of my time in living rooms and conferences around the world doing just that.  

I will simply say that the first step is to be open to drastic change in how we do this thing called “church” and to be willing to have open, non-hostile conversation over the topic. 

Mike: I hear you. I think that for many of us out here, we want to see the church function as a family and as a body. Even those of us allegedly in these ground-breaking emerging or house churches often feel like there’s something big missing; namely, this vine-to-branch union with God in Christ! How do we experience the vitality and guidance of the Spirit in our churches? And how do we prevent this experience from being an end into itself, but instead steward it just like God does—to go forth and express?  

Frank: To rightfully answer this question, I need nine weeks with a group of believers.

Our mentality concerning spiritual things is “microwave on high for two minutes.” But in the real world, things don’t work that way. A large part of my ministry is to sit in a living room with a new community of Christians who wish to be church together, and to show them what I know about how to experience Christ in the Spirit together. This can’t all be put in a book. It has to be demonstrated and practiced. And to my mind, God’s people are starving for practical ways to know and experience Him together. 

Mike: So this quest can begin with reading, but climaxes, ideally, in a relationship with a flesh-and-blood guide who can come alongside and help midwife a group’s spiritual journey?  

Frank: I’d add the word “guides” (plural). But yes, I think so. But to answer in a more general way: I think the first step is to realize that God has a purpose, or as I put it in the book, an “ultimate passion” that reaches far beyond the felt-needs of humans. This is very difficult for the evangelical mind to grasp. 

Let me give you an example. Recently, I heard a famous fundamentalist preacher argue against the idea that Jesus came for something more than to take us to heaven. He repeatedly quoted the verse where Jesus says, “I came to seek and save that which was lost.” Interestingly, He didn’t quote the many other passages where Jesus said He came for a different purpose. Granted, Jesus did come to seek and save the lost. But that was only one of His purposes in coming; it wasn’t His ultimate purpose. 

Mike: Could you unpack that?

Frank: Suppose a mother is going to take her 6-year old son to a school recital where he will publicly display his incredible singing voice. The recital begins at 7pm. At 5pm, the boy is playing outside. When his mother calls him, he’s covered in dirt, head to toe. The boy’s mother has an immediate goal. To give her son a bath and dress him up for the recital. But that’s not the mother’s ultimate goal. Her ultimate goal is to take him to the recital so that he can publicly display his matchless voice. 

Mike: Ahh, I think I see where this is going… 

Frank: I hope so. Jesus’ statement that He came to seek and save the lost was in reference to His immediate goal of giving us fallen mortals a bath and dressing us up. But this was mid-range planning, if you will—an intermediate goal necessary so we could fulfill His ultimate intention . . . which is wrapped up in something for Himself. 

The second step, I think, is to understand that we are a “new species” in Christ (to borrow C.S. Lewis’ language). As such, we have a native habitat that God has designed us for. In addition, our species was created to eat a certain kind of food and drink not native to this earth. It is by eating that food and drinking that drink that we outwardly express the life of that nourishment together as a community.  

This is a very different approach to the common idea that says: “Look at Jesus in the Gospels and do what He did.” It’s one that rather says, “This same Jesus lives in you and you can learn to live by His life today . . . there’s a habitat for living that life and there’s a way to partake of Him so that you can live by His life with others.” 

Mike: Less a slavish imitation of the historical Jesus and more a participation in the living Christ.   

Frank: Exactly. Jesus Himself put it this way: “As the living Father has sent me and I live by the Father, so He that eats me shall live by me.” 

While I hear a lot of talk about “doing the stuff” that Jesus did in certain Christian circles, particularly in the justice arena, the “how” is often overlooked. And yet it’s a basic key to understanding just how the life of Christ works in human lives. 

So finding our native habitat, living in it, and eating and drinking the food that is made for our species are the basic ingredients for the out-living of the new man on earth. So it seems to me. These concepts are developed in the book. The good news is that these things aren’t arm-chair philosophy. They can be experienced today, if we are willing to pay the price to obtain them.  

Frank Viola is an influential voice in the contemporary house church movement. For the last twenty years, he has been gathering with organic house churches in the United States. Frank has written eight revolutionary books on radical church restoration, including Pagan Christianity, God’s Ultimate Passion, and The Untold Story of the New Testament Church. He is a nationally recognized expert on emerging trends in the church, and is actively engaged in planting New Testament-styled churches. Frank also holds conferences on the deeper Christian life which are designed to enrich the spiritual lives of God’s people. You can find him online at www.frankviola.com and God’s Ultimate Passion can be seen at www.ultimatepassion.org 

Mike Morrell is a journalist and publishing consultant living in intentional community (raleighdurhamsaints.com) in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife, Jasmin (jasminpittman.blogspot.com) and newborn daughter, Jubilee Grace. He is an editor with TheOoze.com, a recent contributor to Volume One of the Wikiklesia Project (wikiklesia.org), and an emerging churches coordinator for the contemporary abolitionist Not For Sale Campaign (notforsalecampaign.org). Mike maintains zoecarnate.com, an alt.Christian web directory, and begins Masters’ work this fall in Strategic Foresight under futurist Jay Gary (jaygary.com). He is looking forward to tying many disparate parts of his life together this fall under the aegis of Presence (presence.tv), an eschatologically adventurous think tank and activist cell funding visions of a new reality.