(For a handout to our Wednesday Koinonia group, 14th November 2012)
WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT THE CHURCH?
(notes from Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity chapter 16)
Recent Titles: A Churchless Faith, UnChristian, They Like Jesus but Not the Church, Quitting Church..
And also: They Won’t Let You Ask Questions
There’s movement between churches:
Some Catholics are being saved from ritualism by becoming Pentecostal
Some Pentecostals are being saved from emotionalism by becoming Presbyterians
Some Presbyterians are being saved from rationalism by becoming Eastern Orthodox
Some Eastern Orthodox are being saved from clericalism by becoming Baptist
Some Baptists are being saved from historical amnesia by becoming Catholic or Orthodox…
Simple churches save people from complexity,
and complex churches save people from simplicity;
Political churches save people from an overly personal religiosity, and
personal churches save people from an overly politicized religiosity.
Exciting churches save people from boredom, and
quiet churches save people from hoopla and hype…
Around and around the cycle goes…
The evolution of the early Christian churches:
local, grass-roots faith communities
–> regional, relational networks
—-> formal governing bodies
——> formal hierarchical institutions
The aim of churches?
To form Christ-like people
People of Christ-like love…
So that we exhibit ‘the glory of God – humanity fully alive’ (Irenaeus)
So that ‘wisdom and knowledge’ (for example) do not become attainments, but ‘gifts of the Spirit’… ‘for the common good’
So that love becomes the ‘truest form of knowledge’
So that we become a ‘school of listening, dialogue, appreciative enquiry, understanding, pre-emptive peace-making, reconciliation, non-violence, prophetic confrontation, advocacy, generosity, and personal and social transformation…’
(All of the above could comprise the totality of a Pastoral Job Description)
Discussion
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