BLOG 7/19/15. “WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR CONGREGATION?”

BLOG 7/19/15. “WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR CONGREGATION?”

Time and again I have asked otherwise thoughtful persons: “What is the purpose of your congregation?” And: “How does your pastor facilitate that purpose/vision?” Time and again I get total blank looks. Because of that lack of purpose and vision, I am here copying my own digest of Lesslie Newbigin’s essay on: The Congregation As the Hermeneutic of the Gospel.” (From Newbigin’s Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Chap. 18, pp. 227 ff.) You will find this a rich resource.

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“The only effective hermeneutic of the gospel is the life of the congregation which believes it.”

“Insofar as it is true to its calling, it becomes the place where men and women and children find that the gospel gives them the framework of understanding, the ‘lenses’ through which they are able to understand and cope with the world. Insofar as it is t rue to its calling, this community will have, I think, the following six characteristics:”

  1. It will be a community of praise. a) Celebration rather than sulleness and hyperactivity. b) Thanksgiving, — a people recipient of grace.
  2. It will be a community of truth. The reigning plausibility structure can only be effectively challenged by people who are fully integrated inhabitants of another. (Missionary confrontation)
  3. It will be a community that does not live for itself but is deeply involved in the concerns of its neighborhood.
  4. It will be a community where men and women are prepared for, and sustained in, the exercise of the priesthood in the world. a) The congregation has to be a place where its members are trained, supported, and nourished in the exercise of their parts of the priestly ministry in the world. b) The congregation must recognize that God gives different gifts to different members of the body.
  5. It will be a community of mutual responsibility. “If the church is to be effective in advocating and achieving a new social order in the nation, it must itself be that new social order.” (p. 231)
  6. And finally it will be a community of hope. “The gospel offers an understanding of the human situation which makes it possible to be filled with a hope which is both eager and patient even in the most hopeless situation.” (p. 231)

“Is the primary business of the ordained minister to look after the spiritual needs of the church members? Is it to represent God’s kingdom to the whole community? Or — and this is surely the true answer — is it to lead the whole congregation as God’s embassage to the whole community?” (p. 236 f)

“The task of ministry is to lead the congregation as a whole in a mission to the community as a whole, to claim its whole public life, as well as the personal lives of all its people, for God’s rule. It means equipping all the members of the congregation to understand and fulfill their several roles in this mission through their faithfulness in their daily work. It means training and equipping them to be active followers of Jesus in his assault on the principalities and powers which he has disarmed on his cross. And it means sustaining them in bearing the cost of that warfare.” (p. 238) . . . A book worth your time! Respond back to me, if you will.

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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