It will soon be the 78^th Anniversary of D-Day, the Allied landing in Normandy during WW2. I am a bit of a history geek (my family may claim that is an understatement) and last year I read Antony Beevor outstanding book on D-Day.

Beevor points out that it was a monumental effort to get so many countries, Americans, British, Belgians, Canadians, French, and Polish to work together to carry out the mission. He argues that it’s success was in part due to the fact that the Allies appointed a SUPREME COMMANDER, General Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower made sure everything was coordinated. He had the final say in every plan and his orders had to be obeyed by every part of the Allied force.

As the early church grew people flooded in from all sorts of different religious and cultural backgrounds and yet just like the Allies in 1944 they were able to work together to invade the Roman Empire successfully, not militarily but spiritually.

I have often reflected on how they managed to do that.

Last week while preparing for Ascension I was reading Colossians chapter 1 and I came across a verse that I think might hold one of the keys to understanding the tremendous impact the early Church made. Here it is, Paul is talking about Jesus and says

If Dwight D Eisenhower was the supreme commander of the Allied Forces in WW2, Paul reminds us that Jesus Christ is the supreme commander of the Church of God in every age. He is the Head of the body; he is to have supremacy in the church.

The head of the Church is not someone in the Vatican, or Canterbury, a bishop, a pastor, a group of elders, or the congregation when it votes, it is Jesus Christ. As a church leader, I need to be often reminded of this as my mind runs off with my own ideas and preferences for the church. Perhaps that verse should be read at every Church business meeting to remind us who get’s the final say.

So here is the thought I am grappling with and I would be glad to hear your ideas if you have any.