networking an army

Out of speaking today with a wonderful young lady and spiritual leader in our church. And during the conversation she spoke of a encouraging activity that has been taking place across denominational lines. Pastors and churches are beginning to network with each other, and although the reasoning for this has many threads the bottom line is encouraging to the overall body of Christ.

I began to think of my past and how in my past in the church/denomination was viewed more as an Army that needed to focus on accomplishing and a winning a battle.
I believe the unbalanced approach to that concept illustrates another difference between the modern and postmodern mindset. An Army is unified to accomplish one goal. An Army takes its orders without question and follows the strategic plan. An Army gives their individual life for the goal and does so with pleasure and honor.
In the modern era as long as the goal was single the church/Army would be so large it would eventually become unstoppable.
But the Christian walk is more complicated than that and the illustration of an army was divided into two many pieces and eventually every pastor wanted to command their own army. Churches became recruiting zones where we recruited based on what you were going to attack and how good our commanding officer was. As the army grew it was used as evidence that our commanding officer was more appreciated by our commander in chief/God therefore more worthy of being followed and sacrificed for.over the long haul we ended up beating up each other, and losing the battle.

In the post modern era we are beginning to see that building relationships forms a much stronger bond than just seeking to attack something together. That if one has built a relationship with multiple churches or multiple denominations you can accomplish victory and a localized battle without losing unity when the battle is over.
The encouragement of the body/army of God is seen by the conversation and dialogue takes place when the time of battle is over. these encouraging times of networking, of unity is what I believe to be causing the positive atmosphere surrounding the postmodern churches. Many of us middle agers understand the pain and negativity that can be caused when every church has its own little battle to fight and his children when the battle is lost for not recruiting better. Many of us are now enjoying a beauty of being part of something larger, of something that affects our local community but it's part of something from another world or kingdom.

Networking an Army is something that has been taking place for many years, but more recently has been positively affecting the larger church in all it's doing.I believe more recently the Army of God has been centering more on who their commander in chief is rather than who they want to be attacking. I see the Army of God following their leader rather than looking for a fight. I think the Army of God is becoming more aware of the journey that takes place between battles is often much longer it takes much more time than the battle itself.

This should be fun..... I think anyways.