What is Church?
I've just read this article on five transitions that the "Emerging Church" is currently moving through and I felt that they were really relevant to my own church context. Basically the transitions were described as:
- Seeker to missional mindset. "Come to us" to "Let's go to them"
- From salvation as life after death to salvation as life. Living with authenticity
- From hierarchy to network. Collaborative ministry process, joint decisions, consensus
- From presentation to participation. Actions of community genuinely alter the outcome of worship, and the community's faith expression and praxis.
- Can modern and emerging ministry get along? Emergent opportunities within the local church context.
I think that these five transitions are ones that my own community could benefit from engaging with on several levels. In particular, point 4 raises a number of questions for me in ministry as I am constantly seeking for people to participate. However, this is sometimes a struggle when the church community employs me to be "the minister" which can translate into me being the vicarious vessel through which the congregants ministry occurs. Rather than each individual congregant fulfilling their own God given vocational and missional acts.
I really believe that one of the best discussions that the Emerging Church brings to the theological debate upon Ecclesial(gathered community of faith) life is surrounding participating (not just attending stuff!!). Generally speaking, the Emerging Church encourages a thoroughly active life within and without the gathered community, missionally, spiritually, and communally, and this is something that I believe every person of faith needs to wrestle with.
So, what is Church? I didn't really answer it, but there are quite a few questions that need to be pondered, and responded to for each community of faith with honesty, humility, and God's grace.
posted by Sime @ 2:06 pm
5 Comments
5 Comments:
I agree lots. We are all called to action in community, and to expand it to others instead of keeping it small and asking others to come join the exclusive club.
I do my speeches and discussions and whatnot to try and explore with people the concept of them taking charge of their faith and being able to put in, and to journey with others is to further your own journey. You can't track progress with those sorts of things. Sometimes I wish I could, because it seems so very futile often.
I'm not sure how else to write what I'm thinking. Maybe at a later stage.
BC: Sometimes we want to hold onto our institutions so tightly that we forget what our calling is. I believe we are called 'out', not 'in' but sometimes we get stuck for convenience, safety, insecurity or whatever reason, and stay where we feel 'content'
I agree. Yes. We often like to stay where we are content, but our faith is not one where we should settle for contentness. It is harder to move outwards rather than inwards, but it is the approach I think is often gazed over by many churches. We should ebm more missional-incarntional and less attractional.
Jono:In some ways I do agree that it is harder to move outwards than inwards, but in other ways I disagree. Only because sometimes the inward journey, of self discovery and Godly revelation, can be very confronting, especially in a world that promotes busyness and a rapid lifestyle. Sometimes I think we do not give God enough space within ourselves to encounter the creative transformative way of God. Does that make sense? I guess if we spend too much time "doing" we can forget to "be". Perhaps Mr Myagi had it right when he said that life, like karate, is all about balance; you have good balance in karate you perform good technique. The Karate Kid is the distributor of all wisdom.
Thanks for writing this.
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