10/19/14. COLONIES OF GOD’S NEW HUMANITY … NEIGHBORS

BLOG 10/19/14. COLONIES OF GOD’S NEW HUMANITY BEGINS WITH …

Describing the basic building block of the God’s recreation of the human community begins with two or more persons who are believers in Jesus, and whose intention is to obey him (who are his disciples), and to intentionally join Christ in his mission of reconciling the world to himself. An individual, or private, Christian person is incomplete—maybe an oxymoron. There is a built-in “one another” factor in the DNA of those who follow Christ. It is not a private spiritual experience. So those, who heed Christ’s call, will also seek out others who have similarly heeded Christ’s call to faith and obedience.

The formation of colonies of God’s new humanity is a demonstration of God’s intention to recreate the true relationships that demonstrate before the watching world God’s reconciling love. “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you love one another.” Now, … here is my point: Such relationships do not ‘just happen’. It takes intentionality and time, and it takes my engagement with very real others, and it involves love for neighbors and neighborhoods.

Right here, however, we have to identify our ‘neighborhoods’. So that a critical piece of the creation of new humanity communities is: identifying our neighborhoods and neighbors. What or where is the neighborhood in which I engage others? In the earlier, small village, or “All in the Family” neighborhoods, they were where the people whom we knew by name, and who lived close to us, and for whom we had some sense of mutual identity. This becomes more rare in the digital age, when we may not have any connection with those who live around us. It may be more the people in my school class, or my work environment, or the people in my running-club, or even folk with whom I share libations at the local pub. There is no simple formula for this, but I, and my colony of God’s new humanity, do not engage in the mission of God in the abstract. In the mission of God I am called to be an agent of God’s love with real people, often tragically confused and spiritually hungry, and people with whom I rub shoulders.

Maybe is sounds like an oversimplification, but God’s new humanity folk need to cultivate the gift of significant conversation, of being able to be aware of the folk around me, of inviting neighbors over for a glass of wine, or a cup of coffee, and engaging them in conversation that gets beyond the weather, or politics, or sports—and calls forth each other’s story. It sees one’s home or apartment as a place of hospitality. But in this mission I still need the support and prayers of others who share Christ’s calling and mission with me. I need the colony.

When I was young, my colony was my biological family, and our dinner table was a place of sharing and accountability, and my father was one who sensitized us to our mission to those we met at school, because he and my mother were also sensitive to this mission in their workplace. When I went to college I found my colony among fellow students who were disciples, and with whom there was mutual nurture and encouragement in our mission within that academic neighborhood. So with each later passage of my life.

It is terribly sad, even tragic, when one can be participant in large and prosperous church institutions and never know the “one another” love with real people in real colonies of mutual love and support and prayer and mission. Churches where such impersonal religious society is the norm are probably a major mission field themselves (though they may have colorful ‘missions conferences’, etc.). This is all oversimplification, I know, but the New Testament makes plain that the believers were together in colonies sharing the apostolic teachings, around relationships of intimacy and mutuality, around the breaking of bread, (i.e., probably common meals plus the Eucharist), and in prayer for one another as they realistically engaged the neighborhood. It begins right there.

 

 

 

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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