Dumasani.net is dedicated to the liberation of the ecclesia among the pan-African diaspora.
The
ecclesia is the body and bride of Christ, the divine creation destined
to share His rule of all things. All we who acknowledge Jesus as God
Incarnate, His death as the sole sufficient payment for our sins, and
His resurrection as the source of our life, are parts of Him and
therefore of Her. And yes, she's a girl.
The ecclesia is not the institutional church (in fact, the very word "church" misrepresents what the Bible talks about). One can be part of the ecclesia without being part of the church. And vice-versa.
Most members of the ecclesia do not know her. They know only the church.
Because
they know only the church, their experience of Christ and of the
Christian life is often limited by traditions and habitual modes of
thinking. They live in a box that is smaller than the life inside them.
This
is true wherever the institutional church has taken hold, in cultures
East and West, in developed and developing nations, among persons of
all nationalities and ethnicities.
A movement is afoot, of
Christians stepping outside their church traditions to experience the
life of God more fully together. For many of them, the most obvious
distinguishing point is that they meet in homes rather than in church
buildings. So, many use the term "house church" to describe what they
do. We will not use that term here, except when quoting others. We will
simply say, "ecclesia."
So far, this movement - in America, at least - seems to be bypassing Black people.
We
do not believe that God intends for a movement which helps His people
to experience His life more fully, to bypass Black people. Thus we will
focus our efforts on filling gaps in awareness among Black Christians,
wherever they are, so that more may know that there is more to life in
Christ than going to church.
Indeed, the very idea of going to
church is unbiblical. There are no examples in the Bible of anyone
going to church. There are no instructions in the Bible to go to
church. And in many cases, what we do in church goes against Biblical
teaching.
This site is all about the question, "What would
happen if we believed what the Bible tells us is true, and did what the
Bible tells us to do?"