BLOG 1/22/14. COLONIES WHICH DEMONSTRATE NEW CREATION PRIORITIES

BLOG 1/22/14. COLONIES WHICH DEMONSTRATE NEW CREATION PRIORITIES

 

Those readers, who follow my Blogs, are fully aware that I am quite persuaded that the familiar institutional form which the church has primarily taken for at least the last millennium and a half (activist and dominant clergy, passive participating laity, focus on a place/building) is archaic, is increasingly unfruitful and difficult to maintain, is diminishing in influence and becoming more and more marginalized, is without any sound Biblical foundation—and is being increasingly abandoned by the emerging generation. I am also persuaded that this is good news, and a sign of hope. It is Christ who is building his church, and Christ who says that “the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

One only has to look at this emerging generation to realize that it is populated with pragmatic young minds who are eager to find solutions to the most impossible problems. It is a generation, which eschews hierarchical organizations, but rather wants to be participant and collaborator in creating those communal solutions that speak to a more fruitful and hopeful future. It is also the best-informed generation in history. It has, for instance, more Biblical, theological, and missional information at its fingertips (on its iPhone) that the church’s scholars of a generation ago could have found in their wildest dreams. It is because of this generational nature that it has consigned the stodgy institutional churches to irrelevance. (They do not, however, reject the rich and fruitful traditions of the past.)

Already the form of the church in the future is coming into focus. It will be made up of mobile, flexible, versatile colonies of those who are formed by, and committed to the gospel of God’s New Creation in Christ (i.e., the gospel of the kingdom of God). All of its participants will be formed by/equipped for obedience to the word of Christ (cf. Colossians 3:16). They will be focused on their part in the mission of God, of being “the missionary agent of the Holy Trinity.” It’s leadership will come from the mature practitioners of all of this within their colonies.

These will prove their authenticity by their obedience to the word of Christ, remembering that Jesus taught unequivocally that those who were truly his disciples were those who heard and obeyed his teachings (note: you can’t worship One whom you do not obey!). This involves not only living out the ethical mandates of the kingdom of God/of the New Creation (as so splendidly set forth in the Sermon on the Mount/Plain), but also living out the relational command to love one another as Christ has loved us. It will be a colony of Light in its knowledge, in its ethical demonstration, and in its relationships. It will be passionate about Jesus’ “search and rescue mission” which is to seek and save those who are still lost, or spiritually confused, or self-destructive, or walking in darkness. It will be also culture creating in a very holistic incarnation of its influence.

The gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of the kingdom of God, is an alternative narrative in itself. It is radical, divisive, transformational, counter-cultural … yet the colony of this gospel will always be suffused with the infinite grace and love of God. Those who find new life in this gospel will almost inevitably find each other, and with together become the entrepreneurs of these New Creation colonies in their journey together as they give themselves to one another in mutual responsibility and accountability.

And, finally, these colonies will, by their love and obedience to Christ, become contagious and reproductive and be always creating new colonies (churches), which also will be mutually encouraging of one another. Studies have shown that the largest number of participants, which an extended family can effectively embrace, is 150. But, the colony in which the Biblical mandates of our ministries to one another is much smaller—something like twelve or fifteen. The emerging generation knows these dynamics. They express a future and a hope for the church.

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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