To understand this post better you should read the previous ones;

https://www.nairaland.com/5909334/ecclesia-priest-prophet-king

https://www.nairaland.com/5920948/ecclesia-secular-world

To succeed in bringing God's government into your environment, you must first bring God's government into your life. Let God reign in your life, let him rule over you. If God is not ruling over you then you cannot be priest, prophet and king. Being a priest requires sacrificing yourself, laying yourself upon the altar as a living sacrifice.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." (Rom 12:1).

No flesh can do this. The flesh is designed with the law of survival and self-preservation. It wants to survive no matter what, it would not easily accept death. It would take God's government apprehending you in order to bring you to the altar. If God's government have not apprehend you, if it is not ruling over your flesh, then it cannot truly rule through you. So the first job of an ecclesia is to bring their members under God's government, so that they would become fit as a vessel through which God would manifest his government on earth.

Now, from all I have been saying about the ecclesia; how they must manifest God's government not just in their locality, but also in their workplace and everywhere they find themselves. This means that the ecclesia have a lot to conquer under God's government, they cannot waste so much time still trying to conquer their members. The assignment is very big, and we cannot get stucked at stage one. This means the ecclesia have to grow speedingly, for the journey is far. Hence, the ecclesia must be organized for speedy spiritual growth.

Yes, there is a way that a people can be organized that would lead to speedy growth. Let me quickly state that ecclesia is different from church. Members of ecclesia can go to church, they should sit under the ministry of gifted men so that they can be edified and grow. Ecclesia meetings can be held every Sunday after church, it could be in the afternoon or evening. There is an ecclesia meeting I attended here in Lagos, it is holds in the afternoon on Sunday.

So the ecclesia members are encouraged to go to church, but it must be a church that truly edify and equip you. This is because, during the ecclesia meeting you would be asked to edify the whole body with what you have gotten from church. The ecclesia members do not pledge allegiance to any church or denomination. You cannot be foolishly going to one church every Sunday when you know you are not being edified there. You are not only damaging your spiritual life, you are damaging the spiritual life of the whole ecclesia.

They all want to be edified by you, and if you are not getting anything from the church you go then find somewhere else where you can get something that would edify the group. Many people go to certain churches just because of their loyalty to the denomination or the G.O. No, the ecclesia members pledge their allegiance to only Christ, they are after Christ, they want to draw from the riches of Christ and be filled with Christ. So they go anywhere the Spirit of Christ is leading them to, anywhere they know they will draw something out of Christ. There is a church I know that sometimes it teaches good substance, but sometimes it teaches rubbish.

I am careful to find out the topic before staying for the service. If I perceive the topic is not something that would edify me, I might just leave immediately, and find another church to go or something. I need to be edified. There is no time to waste, you can't be dragging your feet, the assignment is huge. So our priority is to grow speedingly. Apart from sitting under edifying and equipping ministry, the ecclesia meeting is organized to foster speedy spiritual growth. There is a kind of structure and design that when put in place the members would be growing so fast.

"Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken." (Ecc 4:9-12).

Church encourages an individualistic Christianity. But in ecclesia your spiritual growth is not person oh, it is a community business. If you are not growing it will affect the whole body, that is why your spiritual growth is the business of the whole community. We are doing it together so that if you are falling, someone can easily pick you up. But if your spiritual life is so secretive and so personal, how would others know to help you. This is why in the ecclesia meeting you open up yourself and share everything. You share your current situation in your walk with God, and what you are doing to improve it.

In the ecclesia we support one another with love. We understand that everyone have their own weaknesses, and we are there to strengthen each other, to help each other overcome and live the victorious Christian life. Ecclesia is design to organize the members to actively explore the unsearchable riches of Christ, like gold miners digging for gold. When one person hit gold he brings it out and shares it with the rest so they become rich. When another one of them hit gold he/she brings it out and share with the rest, then they all become richer, and another finds gold through his hard digging, brings it out and share with the group.

Little by little they all are becoming richer and richer with Christ until they become completely filled with all the fullness of Christ. Church is design to have majority of the people sit passively and watch a small group of people perform on the altar. Passivity is not the way of growth. You need to actively engage Christ. You need to be given a platform to share Christ, for that is the way of growth. Christ is like a river that must be allowed to flow. The more you share, the more you grow. But if you do not share, it will die inside of you and your growth will be stunted. This is why ecclesia is there to give you that platform to share with fellow believers and edify each other.

The ecclesia goal is to make sure the members are truly growing, and as such a structure must be set up to foster spiritual growth. The apostle is the one to design this structure. The work of the apostle is to lay the foundation, so that the body of Christ can fulfill God's eternal plan. So the ecclesia would need the apostles or any other person who have learn from the apostles on how to lay down this structure. Without this structure the ecclesia would be struggling. Carnality will be lashing out unrestrained, ruining the fellowship.

The ecclesia would even dissolve if this structure is not lay down. They will just fight each other and scatter everything, each person going his own way. Intimacy is not an easy thing, that is why church avoid it. Opening up yourself, exposing your life to another is not an easy thing. Practicing the ecclesia is not easy, and if it is not done carefully, if the proper structure is not laid down, everything might turn out very ugly and no one would want to stay.

An apostle would teach you how to organize yourself, how to do your meetings, how to deal with carnality and eradicate it from their midst, how to encourage and motivate each other to grow speedingly, how to come under the government of God, how to grow in corporately ascension into the court of heaven, how to grow in exercising the government of God. Apart from the apostle laying the foundation, you will also need other ministers such as the teachers and prophets. In the first century, the ecclesia they practiced was open to other ministries. A teacher can come in to equip the saints and go his way. A prophet could also come and equip them in the way the Lord has trained him to, and then go his way.

"When one of you says, “I am a follower of Paul,” and another says, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you acting just like people of the world? After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us. I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow." (1Cor 3:4-6).

The minister does not matter, what matters is that the people grow. Any ministry can come, introduce themselves to the ecclesia, tell them how they can make their ecclesia more effective. And if the ecclesia accept the ministry he could come in and equip them. When he is done he would go his way. That is ecclesia life, ministers come in and out, but the ecclesia must not pledge allegiance to any minister. They are to focus only on growing. Yes, grow into the government of God, let his government consume you completely until you become a living embodiment of God's government on earth.