BLOG 5/6/17. THE CHURCH: CALLED FOR A PURPOSE

BLOG 5/6/17. THE CHURCH: CALLED FOR A PURPOSE

There is a generous degree of obscurity, or maybe amnesia, in the church as to its purpose in the design of God. When one joins Alcoholics Anonymous, or the Boy Scouts, there is a well-defined sense of purpose that goes along with one’s identification with such. Not so, all too often, with  those in the church. One can be a faithful participant and not have a clue as to what the church as to do with God’s design for the human community. Maybe much of the blame can be laid at the door of the translation of the New Testament into English. The Greek word that Jesus used to designate the community he was to create was the common word ek-klesia, which pertains to any group of those persons called-out for some specific purpose. This is the word that Jesus used when announcing to his intimate disciples what was about to follow: “I will build my ek-klesia/church and the gates of hell shall not be able to prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).

Right away, any inquisitive mind would ask: Called out from what? and, called to what? How does that take place? But when the translators sought a word for that in English, they used an Anglo-Saxon word that essentially meant: ‘the Lord’s community’ (sounds something like kuriakos, or church). That easily took on something of a static possibility without any dynamic sense of purpose or mission essential to its purpose. Along the way it took on the sense of being a religious institution with buildings, active priesthood, and rites, … and the possibility of being passive participants within what may have been a meaningful spiritual experience, but with no engaging of every participant in the mission of God. But that’s not at all the way it is presented in the New Testament.

Let me tell you a story that began to focus this in my mind. I had been invited to one of this country’s paradigm theological institutions to give a couple of lunch-time addresses to a group of their students. After the second address, I casually mentioned that I was going to be around until the next day and that if any of them wanted to join me for supper, then I would enjoy their company and would let my organization pick up the tab. That evening about eight or them joined me, bright and attractive seniors, and took me to their favorite bistro—but what they wanted from me was not any more about the subjects I had addressed in my talks, but they wanted to know what it was like in the pastorate? What were the dynamics I had experienced? It began to dawn on me that they had never had courses in ecclesiology (the study of the church), or much about missiology (the study of the church’s mission). And, sadly, almost none of their faculty had ever been pastors. The faculty were brilliant academicians, but had no significant experience in mid-wifing others into faith (evangelism), or making disciples, or creating contagious Christian communities.

These particular students had mostly come to seminary after being leaders in para-church organizations in college (Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, Campus Crusade for Christ, Young Life, etc.), organizations that did put a focus on disciple-making, and that had given them the desire to pursue that calling after college, and in the church, somehow. But, essentially, what they had received in seminary was superb academic disciplines, and the image of pastor as institution-keepers (and an academic degree). No wonder we have such obscurity on the church’s purpose in the design of God to be the incarnation of God’s New Humanity, and to be conformed to his image, and to be actively engaged and contagious in that calling.

Ah! but there is burbling up from the grassroots a generation of creative and innovative younger adults, who are reconceiving of the church and forming contagious, authentic homebrew churches, in all kinds of unsuspected forms and unexpected places, … and where every participant is part of the ministry. I want to expore that with you in forthcoming Blogs. Stay tuned, and invite your friends to join us in this journey. Thanks.

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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