I would like to add to what I wrote before about living a practical church life:
Even though the time of the Lord's return is known only by the Father, it is not arbitrary. When His purpose in this age is fulfilled, the Lord will return. So as we, His people, cooperate with the Lord according to His desire, we are actually hastening His coming (2 Pet. 3:12). Revelation 19:7 says that when the marriage of the Lamb has come, His wife has made herself ready. Matthew 24:14 says that the end will come when the gospel of the kingdom has been preached in the whole inhabited earth for a testimony to all the nations. Making the bride ready and preaching of the gospel of the kingdom in the whole inhabited earth are clearly related to the Lord's return, but how will the Lord's people accomplish these things? Only as the Body grows and builds itself up in love through the operation in measure of each part (Eph. 4:16).
We strive to carry out a practical church life through the members functioning in coordination because we see this as a necessary requirement for each member to be able to function according to its measure of Christ. We readily admit that this is not easy. It is much easier to have an especially gifted member function in the traditional role of a pastor with no greater spiritual requirement on most of the members than to attend the services and offer some money. We are striving to have a church life where every member, not just those with outstanding gifts or formal spiritual training, can function and do business with their talents.
I would like to add to the explanations about difficulties and limitations that need to be overcome to have a spiritual coordination where every member can function according to its measure of the gift of grace given to it by the Head (Eph. 4:7). There are many things that I could mention but I only want to write about two main frustrations. The one is the concepts that we already have from our background, upbringing, education, culture, and past spiritual learning and experiences. Even though we are loving and seeking the Lord, it is very difficult for Him to lead us beyond the realm of our preconceived notions. So when we come to practice the church life together with those with different backgrounds than our own, we often have different feelings about how the Lord is leading us. Very often the different feelings about how to go forward are according to people's different concepts, not the Lord's leading at all.
The other difficulty is our person, our self. It is natural for us to either trust ourselves, thinking that our ideas are right and our ways the best, or despise ourselves, thinking that we have nothing spiritual to offer. Both attitudes are just expressions of our view of ourselves and frustrate our function in the body. Actually, our self pops up in many different ways as we serve the Lord together in the practical church life. If we recognize self for what it is and repent and turn back to the Lord, the situations that caused the self to be manifest are the means for us to grow in the Lord. But when we don't recognize self and hold on to our opinions thinking we are right and justified, then the self frustrates our fellowship with both other saints and the Lord. However, often we don't see this and blame someone else for whatever situation spoiled our enjoyment of the Lord in the church life. If we were truly delivered from self, nothing could come between us and the Lord or us and the other saints. Every situation and problem would be an opportunity to minister something of Christ to others.