BLOG 9/24/14. COLONIES OF GOD’S NEW HUMANITY: NOT PERMANENT
Identifying the ‘church’ as colonies of God’s new humanity raises an inescapable question, namely, what is the life span of such colonies? Let’s begin with an inescapable Biblical principle: God calls his people to always be aware that they are “sojourners/aliens/pilgrims and exiles/strangers” (I Peter 2:9ff) … and such sojourners and exiles are not called to build sanctuaries and seek permanence! They are called to seek to be faithful to be their calling and mission as a holy nation, … a people of God’s possession and to proclaim the excellence of him who calls them. Not permanence but obedience to Christ’s calling. Not sanctuaries and permanence, but rather to incarnate their new humanity lives in their daily engagements, and as colonies to encourage each other, teach and admonish one another, and to share in the Eucharistic table.
Unfortunately (even tragically) many don’t get this, so that there have been for a millennium and a half a focus on permanent church institutions and church sanctuaries, replete with a professional clergy and sacralized rites as the major focus of the church’s life … which often have little or nothing to do with God’s metanarrative for his ‘called-out people’—for his New Creation community.
Yes, there is some confortable security to being a ‘member’ of such institutions of religious Christianity (Bonfoeffer’s description)—but then God has not called us such security, or to comfort … but to obedience to Jesus Christ. Our comfort and security are to be his promises, to his assurance: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
It is my observation and that of many others that we are living in the final days of such institutional expressions of what pertains to be ‘the church’ (but are hardly so). Impressive sanctuaries replete with commendable architecture … are decreasingly inhabited—many up for sale (It might be a huge favor to the cause of Christ if the civil magistrate would tax church property, which it has every right to do!).
There are a plethora of articles recently about: “Why Millennials are Leaving the Church.” What is unspoken is that they may not be leaving the church, but rather seeking some more authentic form. (The Boomer generation may well be the last generational culture with a sentimental and traditional affinity for the church institutions of their parents.) Millennials are pragmatists. They, (and their successors in the ‘iY’ generation) are the generation that has produced the likes of Larry Page and Sergey Brin (founders of Google), and a host of other mind-boggling innovators and solvers of ‘impossible problems’.
My prediction is that we will see emerge marvelous and fruitful new forms of God’s new humanity in innovative colonies that are flexible, versatile, and mobile—eschewing any temptation to permanence as they incarnate Christ’s passion to make all things new, to be light in the existential darkness of their everyday lives. But such will make the colonies even more critical and the agents of mutual encouragement and edification for God’s people.
Am I dreaming? Not really. Already we are seeing the still emerging phenomena of such creative and fruitful communities functioning without any quest for permanence, without the encumbrance of maintaining vast real estate holdings—such as Redeemer Church of Upper West Side in New York, in its quest to reach the confused God-seekers in that urban culture. Along the way that church and its mission have proliferated a multitude of church planters, created an institute to help them know how to engage daily workplace with excellence and faithfulness … while planting other such creative colonies in the metropolitan area (and in other cities). It’s happening. There are a whole lot of surprises waiting us out there! But not permanence!
