BLOG 4.30.19. THE CHURCH’S TWO FORMS: GATHERED AND SCATTERED

BLOG 4.30.19. THE CHURCH’S TWO FORMS: GATHERED AND SCATTERED

Did you ever stop to contemplate the reality that the church is just as much the church on Thursday afternoon when it is scattered as it is on Sunday morning when it is gathered? We are called to be the community of God’s new humanity engaged in our high and holy calling to be the communal expression of his love for the world, and of his love and good works wherever and whenever. Both forms are essential in his mission for us. God calls us to a whole radical new way of living, thinking, behaving, relating to others, hoping, conceiving, and rejoicing in both of these forms.

We need our engagement with the community gathered—we need each other’s love, mutual confession, mutual ministry of encouragement of each other in the word of God, sharing each other’s laughter and tears, yes. We need to regularly be reminded of the teachings of Christ and the apostles, to be re-evangelized and challenged to new obedience as we are also called to engage in Christ’s ‘seek and rescue’ mission among all of those lost sheep wandering in the fog and wondering which way is home. These seldom find their way into assemblies of the church-gathered. Our times gathered are a gift, but they should cause to enter the week salivating over our calling to live those lives of love and good works for which we are called, … and which lives make those outside curious as to the hope that is in us.

As a pastor, when I was teaching the community on Sunday mornings, I looked at that diverse community sitting out there in front of me and being staggered with the vast number of engagements and inter-personal connections they would have before we met again. I wanted, so profoundly, to equip them for whatever and whomever they might be engaged, and how they would faithfully carry out their missionary calling. It was staggering to contemplate (and made me want to spend more time interacting with them to get fine-tuned to their lives and engagements.

I was in a break-out group at a conference dealing with the ministry of the laity a few years back, and one of the outspoken participants was Bill Diehl, who at the time was vice-president for marketing for one of the major steel companies in the United States. He was quite critical of his congregation in Pittsburgh, which was very impressed with who he was, and wanted him on all of the local and regional church councils, but in all the years of his membership never asked him what he did during the week. All the while his passion was to be a faithful steward of his role and influence with the company and his sales personnel. He, ultimately, wrote this up in a book entitled: Thank God, It’s Monday! Which, book, gets to the heart of the missionary calling of all of God’s people, and the awesome potential of their faithfulness.

We become God’s missioners in our particular ‘Monday-morning world’ in encounters which no one else would ever have. How we express the love and good works to which we are called? How we are to be able to give a thoughtful answer when others (over coffee or beer) ask of us reason for the hope that dwells in us.

Consider the impact of our new creation knowledge, behavior, and relationship with the Trinitarian community. It’s staggering. Gathered then scattered. Two essential forms of the missionary arm of the Holy Trinity.

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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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One Response to BLOG 4.30.19. THE CHURCH’S TWO FORMS: GATHERED AND SCATTERED

  1. Jermaine Ladd says:

    Remaining connected to God helps.

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