BLOG 9/9/15. WHEN YOU SEE AN OPEN DOOR, DO YOU STOP AND THINK …

BLOG 9/9/15. WHEN YOU SEE AN OPEN DOOR, DO YOU STOP TO THINK …

The entrepreneurs of many of the brilliant start-ups of recent years (Apple, Google, Facebook. Amazon, etc.) all had a somewhat (maybe the word is) brutal insistence by their planners to have a very clear focus on what it was that they were seeking to accomplish that no one else ever had. They had also an insistence on the experience of the customer. Not only was this insisted upon at the dreaming stage, but as the companies began to come into being and to be successful, they kept that laser-like focus on performing effectively, and being very sensitive to the customer experience as the start-ups grew into huge business empires. They saw the need of constant change and fine-tuning. As one of their CEOs stated it: The competition didn’t provide them with money. Rather, it was the satisfied customer that would provide them the money they needed. They also knew that times and circumstances and the purchasing public are not static. Their needs differ and they change and they needed to respond to the change.

So, what has this interesting tid-bit of information have to do with the church (which happens to be something of the purpose behind this Blog)? Well, since I’ve raised the question, I’ll begin by saying that any Christian community/colony needs to have a very clear (laser-like) focus on what it is that Jesus has called his church to be and to do. He never ever talks about establishing some kind of religious institution. He doesn’t even, ultimately, call upon his followers to build the church—that’s his own initiative: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” What he does is present himself as the Door into something radically new and reconciling and joyous and empowering. It is a life of transformational discipleship.

But, . . . just stop and think: If Jesus presents himself to us as the Door through which men and women go in and out and find life, then one would be well-served to do a bit of investigating as to precisely what was beyond that Door, and what it would promise and what it would demand. It is not a Door into mindless religion, or into some ecstatic spirituality. It is a Door into a radical newness, into obedience to his commands, into his mission, and into a supernatural encounter with his own divine power that ultimately creates his own divine image in those who come to him. It is an invitation into a cosmic battle with darkness as God’s children of the Light.

Yet, tragically, all too often it is that institutions that pass themselves off as ‘the church’ that actually obscure this calling. There are invitations to membership with offers of all kind of perks, institutional activities, and yet never seriously pursue the radical claims made by one’s going through the Door, through Jesus, and accepting the demands of the new life and relationships that are of the essence of God’s New Creation, of the Age to Come that is now invading this age.

Keep pursuing this question and you come to the questions: Precisely what is it that the church is to be seeking to form in those who are baptized into its community? And how is a given Christian community/church implementing the disciplines necessary to make that New Creation a reality? How does a community justify every activity and engagement in the light of its core purpose to see the image of God created in every baptized participant? What is the most effective form of community to make this a reality? How and where is the leadership formed for such, and proven effective and fruitful in its leadership role? How is the knowledge of God and his calling most effectively communicated to, and appropriated by the church’s participants?

It is never a call to mindless or passive church membership. As a matter of fact there is never anywhere in the New Testament any comment about “joining a church.” It is always a calling to a dynamic and growing relationship to the Door, Jesus Christ, by which his own life and power become incarnated in those who have come to God the Father through him.

Such pursuit renders many ostensible church institutions highly questionable, while it also reveals some dynamic colonies of faith in totally unexpected places and forms. Stand by . . .

 

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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