Musings: Notes From My Daybook

Two conversations today have really fueled my imagination and spirit. Though both were ostensibly on different topics, they shared a common theme. Frankly, I'm excited to hear elders, ministers, and leaders in the congregation I serve willing to ask important questions and pursue the right sorts of answers. In both conversations the theme was the same. For a congregation to find the strength to do what is necessary to be a church, it must first have the answer to a fundamental question.

The question can be asked in different ways but the question always comes around to purpose and identity. What are we here for? What does it mean to be church in the 21st century-to the context that we live in? What is our mission?

Now I'm not saying anything new or different here. In fact, this is not particularly revelatory at all. The difficult most churches face comes on two fronts. First, we love to give pat answers to such vital questions and then go on doing whatever we were doing. We forget that when purpose is really discovered it becomes a governing concept, a compelling passion. Second, we think that church is about people--saved people, lost people. We think that our vision is something that we think up that fits our concepts about the people around us.

Frankly, nothing can be further from the truth. What I am coming to realize is that mission and purpose is not about people--saved or lost. Mission and purpose is really found in discovering and participating in God's work in the world. Like the the youthful Jesus, we are to be about the Father's business. Everything single effort, every energy, every dollar, every phone call and converation is rooted and centered in God's activity--his kingdom--as He continues to make His presence known in this world.

Our vision and purpose all to often is simply not biblical or theological enough. It is really great to start sports leagues, women's ministries, prayer breakfasts, and the long list of things that churches do. But if those things can't be directly tied to what God is doing in our world, then we are spinning our wheels.

The single priority of the church is to ask what it means to be the keeper of the news that God's kingdom, that is, his presence, is here and available to all. Are we making the news known? Are we living out the truth of that news is community? Are we demonstrating that news with love and compassion? (Matthews three fold movement--announcing, teaching or forming Christian community, and healing; Matthew 4.23;9.35)

How does a church come to hear that simple news again and let that news shape its whole fibre, its DNA? We want a band-aid when there are times when we need a transplant.

Be merciful, O God.