"Go forth into the world rejoicing in the power of the Spirit" are the last words we hear each Sunday as we ready ourselves to leave church. It's a power-filled command. Do we get it? I mean really get it? Do we want to get it and get on with it?
What if instead the Deacon charged us, "Okay folks, you've been loved, forgiven and well-fed. Now, get out that door. Get out of your comfort zone. Do what's been done for you: reach out to love, forgive and nourish others in Christ's name."
For you, for me, for us together as a diocese – what does this mean and how do we live it? How do we leave our churches and live as the Church in the world? These are the challenging and exciting questions the Diocesan Steering Team is just beginning to explore.
We've met twice. We're still getting acquainted with each other and with our charge: "[to] engage the diocese in reaching out into our culture for information and connection, identify the future God is calling us into, interpret this future for the people who are here, and begin plotting the course that will take us there."
We operate in full confidence that God offers a vital future for us, individually and communally, even as we don't yet fully know what that future entails. We hope you will join us on our journey of discovery, challenge and surprise. Fair warning: this adventure will change your life and ours – and even better, the lives of others in our communities.
When people meet for the first time, the unvarying question is not "Are you a Christian?" "a Presbyterian?" "a Jew?" but "What do you do?" It's a good question because it makes a straight shot toward a large part of what gives meaning to a person's life, a question (we should recognize as) also implicitly fraught with spiritual weight. One might think the life of a banker, a pipe fitter, or a nurse is purely secular, a place set outside the tent of divine activity. On the other hand, it's possible that there surely are rich veins of divine action in the lives of every day work that are not well recognized by the church because they don't comport well with church standards of success. For the most part, churches emphasize a personal, inward spirituality with occasional ventures into social action and justice, guaging their health mostly on membership and financial viability. That's laudable and produces many fine Christians, but why shouldn't we be mining the rich vein of divine activity that goes on unrecognized in ordinary "secular" life and work?
ReplyDeleteAll our lives are an offering to God. Thanks for the reminder of that!
DeleteIt was interesting for me to learn from my daughter, who worked as a volunteer in mission in South America for a year, that it was considered inappropriate to ask a person what they did for a living early in a conversation. That was because they believe that the nature of the work they are required to do does not accurately reflect who they are.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I think the church thinks too narrowly when it only focuses on making disciples. It needs to also focus on making disciple-makers. Traditionally, I suppose, people think about the institutional church as the disciple-maker, or the clergy. However, this really constrains impact. As a person in a business/ministry, it is not enough for me to simply think about making clients. I need to make client-making clients. To expand my impact, I must not only do what I do. I must train other people to do what I do.
The vision of making disciple-making disciples that is not simply about planting more institutional churches kicks the enterprise up to a whole new level.
Thanks, Russ!
Delete"Client-making clients". . .Jesus of Nazareth was about the business of making disciple-making disciples. The "whole new level", it seems to me is to follow his lead.
DeletePerhaps we need to change our focus from bringing people into the church to sending people out from it. A lot of things about God's way of doing things initially appear to be counter-intuitive. (We are called to die to ourselves in order to find eternal life with Jesus.) Rather than trying to welcome everyone to share in what we already have, we need to be looking outward to see what new thing God is doing, and try to become a part of it. In the process, we and our church will grow stronger and become more relevant. And in the end we may even get some new members.
ReplyDeleteChurch is a verb, not a noun, and is particularly relevant outside the walls we call a church. I like the notion of looking for what new things God is doing.
DeleteYes. To tune-up our eyes to really "see" and our ears to really "hear"
Deleteone new thing a day that God is doing and inviting our participation - could be/can be a powerful practice for us. Shall we give it a try?
Years ago the Church made ventures into worldly categories for translating the meaning of the gospel. 'New things' was one of them. ("Behold I am doing a new thing. Now it spring forth. Can you not perceive it?") Affordable housing springs forth, so does fracking, affordable care, the information explosion, new fangled derivatives, etc., etc. Surely some of these things are manifestations of Creativity and our own co-creativity. Many people are engaged in such issues. Should the church be a refuge away from such things? solely a comfort zone? Shouldn't we also be offering challenge and enrichment?
ReplyDeleteChallenge and growth are essential parts of our spiritual journeys.
DeleteYou raise thoughtful and essential questions. From my perspective, to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose. "Solely a comfort zone?" No. In the best of all possible ways for us to be Church, I hope we are a refuge away and a comfort zone when that is a journeyer's need; and also that we are a challenger and enricher, providing substantial "nourishment" for the Gospel journey.
ReplyDeleteAbout 45 years ago Charles Glock, a sociologist of religion at U.C. Berkeley, together with some colleagues, wrote a book about churches called To Comfort and to Challenge. The book offered conclusions to a survey of people whose lives ranged across four continuums. They ranged from 1) a gamut of church-going folks to non-church-going folks; 2) an age span from those in their twenties up through people in their seventies; 3) a sliding scale of good incomes to poor incomes; 4) a collection of callings from those whose stations made them important to society and rewarded accordingly, to those of lesser importance. This entire variety of people were asked about church attendance, church importance, income, social and political activity, etc. From other sociological findings, the authors assumed another continuum that stretched from most admired in society (the young upper middle class male) to the least admired (low income folks over sixty-five). Their survey led them to believe that those who were more admired socially got their “strokes” within secular society and accepted its challenges. They had relatively little connection with churches, while those less admired by society sought the church as their place of comfort and were less suited to take on challenges. We might quarrel with such broad social conclusions, but it’s still worth asking whether Glock et al were right then and are still right today.
ReplyDeleteThank you. It is interesting to consider how this book's title - To Comfort and to Challenge - speaks to the church of today just as it did to the church of 45 years ago.
ReplyDeleteWhat if instead the Deacon charged us, "Okay folks, you've been loved, forgiven and well-fed. Now, get out that door. Get out of your comfort zone. Do what's been done for you: reach out to love, forgive and nourish others in Christ's name."
ReplyDeleteThat's part of the problem, IMO. Of course everybody should live out their Christian values in every area of life, and continually seek opportunities to share God's love with the world, but if it's to end there, then what's the church even for? I know many people who consider themselves "spiritual but not religious," and even atheists, who put many Christians to shame in terms of active love and efforts to better their communities. Sometimes they even band together for a cause, such as the Occupy movement or the No Coal Trains project here in the PNW. Why do they band together? Because there is strength in numbers, because many hands make light work, because there is a weight of authority behind a group that doesn't exist for individuals.
You asked for 6 words, and let me tell you, it was hard for me to keep it to just 6! (Perhaps that was the intent.) Church, as far as the larger community is concerned, mainly holds bazaars and things. Nice enough, but nothing you'd give up an afternoon to make sure to attend. But what if the local church held a clean-up of some blighted neighborhood area, or formed a human chain around the house of some elderly person whose home had been wrongfully foreclosed, or ran a community barter exchange? Individuals can't do these types of things, but churches can, and such activities would be a powerful draw even to the unchurched.
Jesus said, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden." I don't know how many of you have ever been in the desert on a moonless night, but it is DARK. Inky black. Can't even see your hand in front of your face. It's immobilizing -- you don't dare set out walking, lest you step into a hole or on a snake. But if there were a hill with a city on top, the light from it would at least provide a reference point to the traveler, and if it were large enough, might even illuminate the terrain. Yet even a small city could be seen -- even one candle in a mud-walled room would be visible for great distances.
Are our churches the beacons of light that Christ calls them to be? Or do people drive by, day after day, never knowing or even wondering what goes on behind the walls, because we're too afraid, AS A BODY, to get out there, roll up our sleeves, and be Christ's hands, feet, and voice in our neighborhoods?
Cheryl,
ReplyDeleteWe do need to be known for our work in the world, rather than for our bazaars! We hope to recover that. And thank you for completing the survey; we were intentional about requesting brief responses not to limit either criticism or praise, but to really focus answers in a way that we could both learn from and effectively communicate.