Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2012!

I will readily admit that, at my age, the turning of another year is a mixed blessing. While a new year invites each of us into new opportunities and new adventures, it is also a sign that time moves more swiftly as the years pass. One would think that the quickened passage of time might encourage those of additional years to hasten the process of change. Oddly enough, I find the opposite to be the case.

The older I become, the more entrenched I seem to get. The gravitational pull of increasing age has settled me in some very particular ways. I am more certain than ever of the desperate state of the Church of Jesus Christ. I am more convinced than ever that, if what used to be the Mainline Church is to survive the current cultural shifts, it will have to change drastically. I thought that I would take this issue of The Shiloh Insider to highlight just a few changes that I am convinced that the Church must make if it is to survive.

1. The Church must be about God and Christ: The Church is not about its members. It is not present in order that those who are members might be served by it. Instead, the mission of the Church must direct its efforts outward, into the neighborhoods and communities that the Church might serve. The Church is to be a light to nations, a lamp whose light may not be hidden, the salt which retains its taste. It is present to represent Christ Jesus to the world.

2. Members are servants: Church members must therefore see themselves as servants who are equipped, inspired and sent out by God's Holy Spirit. Energies, talents and time of church members must be directed toward service to others. Membership on congregation boards and committees does not necessarily equate to outward service. There are cases in which boards and committees can lead persons to wider service, but service to the organization of the Church is not automatically the service to which God calls us.

3. Service takes place within context. To serve Christ Jesus in the church's communities and neighborhoods means that most excellent service takes place within simple contexts. Instead of engaging in support of things far away, from which we are isolated, persons must learn to engage in the mission of Jesus Christ in the everyday course of life. Christian service is more about the way we live, day in and day out, than what missions and ministries we support. How do we serve those whom we encounter in the course of our most common days? How do we treat others? What do we do for them?

4. Faithfulness is measured by ethics. Faithfulness of those who might be considered as practitioners of Christianity is tied to the ethic of Christ Jesus. We are called upon, and equipped by God's Holy Spirit, to live as Christ lived. Because he sacrificed himself in service to others, we are to sacrifice ourselves. Because Christ Jesus treated with kindness those of low social, economic and political standing, the Church must join him in working for their benefit. That ethic must translate to everyday practice and social decision-making. While the issues are not economic or political, faithfulness must inform political, economic and social decision-making.

5. The purpose of the Church is empowering servants. The Church therefore has the obligation of motivating and equipping persons for practicing the ethic of Christ Jesus. The educational efforts of the church must be geared to personal spiritual calling. Its fellowship must be molded by the necessity of unity in vision and mission. The Church must be consistent in everything that it does to equip persons for practicing the ethic of Christ Jesus. The Church is not an institution of membership hatch, match and dispatch, but of community transformation through personal spirituality.

May this be the focus of Shiloh's 2012. May it be the purpose of the Church of Jesus Christ. I am more convinced than ever that this is the form in which the Church will survive...and thrive.

See You Sunday!