The 137-mile-long Atchafalaya River is a distributary of the Mississippi River that meanders through south central Louisiana and empties into the Gulf of Mexico, serving as a significant source of income for the region because of the many industrial and commercial opportunities it offers. Yet as scenic, productive, and enriching as this river is, it owes all its strength - all of it - to the mighty Mississippi.

That's because a distributary doesn't have its own direct water source; it is an overflow of something else. So when the Mississippi is high, the Atchafalaya is high; and when the Mississippi is low, the Atchafalaya is low. What the Atchafalaya accomplishes depends wholly on something other than itself.

The church is a lot like the Atchafalaya River. Anything of value she accomplishes is always tied to her source. So if she somehow loses connection with it - with her first love, the living Word - she loses all power. She dries up and empties. If any church becomes fed by a less potent source, by some other supply system than the gospel of Christ, her level of transformative power is directly affected. It's like trying to overflow the banks of a river with a 12-ounce bottle of water. Impossible. Pointless.

The Bible, of course, gives us good and right teaching on everything from sex to parenting to money to morals. All good things. Wonderful things. God's design and desire for all of life. But our ability to walk in these truths with freedom and joy - and our church's ability to lead people into this ongoing, abundant-life experience for themselves - is dependent on something else: an accurate and deep understanding of the gospel. That is our Mississippi.

Without a proper understanding of the gospel, people will miss the big biblical picture and all the joyful freedom that comes from living it. They will run from God in shame at their failures instead of running toward Him because of His mercy and grace.

Just as the river forms distributaries, the gospel forms the church. The distributaries do not form the river, just as the church does not form the gospel. When a church confuses the order, she loses her true effectiveness. When a church chooses something other than the river of the gospel as the driving force behind her teaching, programming, staffing, and decisions, she empties herself of all power. Instead of becoming a distributor of life, she becomes a distributary of death. She doesn't really have anything else to offer.

The gospel centers us on Jesus' person and work, or it isn't the gospel . . . and it isn't where our first love should be. Ultimately, the gospel is not a nebulous or ethereal concept, but Jesus Himself. In its simplest form, the gospel is God's reconciling work in Christ - that through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, God is making all things new both personally for those who repent and believe, and cosmically as He redeems culture and creation from its subjection to futility.

Sadly, a big gap exists between understanding the gospel and understanding what the gospel means for the church. Perhaps this is largely because we tend to think of the gospel as an individual message that causes individual transformation - which is partially true. But the gospel is much more than that. The gospel also forms the church. Scripture says Jesus "gave Himself" for the church (Ephesians 5:25), buying the church "with His own blood" (Acts 20:28), in order to "redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for Himself a people for His own possession, eager to do good works" (Titus 2:14). The gospel needs to be seen in this total perspective.

The gospel is, of course, for individuals - yes - and it should and ultimately does cause transformation in the life of every person who believes on the Lord Jesus. However, that's only part of what God is accomplishing in His plans to make all things new. And we cannot afford to forget it.

We are created by, sustained by, and empowered by something other than ourselves. By the gospel of Christ. What the Mississippi River is to the Atchafalaya River, the gospel is to the church. Theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg wrote: "Though the gospel is proclaimed in the church and by its leaders, it is not a product of the church; rather, the gospel is the source of the church's existence. The proclamation of the gospel, then, is not merely one thing among others in the church's life. It is the basis of the church's life. The church is a Creature of the Word."

"The Church is a Creature of the Word . . ." Yes, a creature. She is alive. A living, breathing movement of God's people redeemed and placed together in collective community. But she is not alive in her own doing. She has been made alive by the Word. God spoke her into existence through the declaration of the gospel - His righteousness on our behalf.

The more a church is tapped into the gospel, the more transformative power will be present by the Holy Spirit in that church. But the more that church gets away from the centrality of the gospel, the more a church will run on fumes, seeing people conformed to a pattern of religion rather than transformed by the Spirit of God.

All that the Lord commands is good and right. There is no word wasted in the inerrant Word of God. But we must always proclaim the Scripture with the gospel at its heart or we will set people up for failure, teaching them to continue trying to earn what's already been freely given.

Try this sentence on for size. A church that understands where its power comes from is a place where individuals are transformed and empowered to join God's corporate family and participate in God's plan to reconcile all things to Himself. Did you see all the pieces there? Individual salvation and transformation leads to a corporate identity, which is then used by God to redeem, restore, and reconcile all things in heaven and on earth by making peace through the blood of His cross.

And all by the gospel.

This article is courtesy of Stand Firm magazine.