Christian Vocation

I have recently been engaged in several high-level discussions about the future direction and purpose of the Church of Jesus Christ and have discovered a few things in the process. Some of these discoveries have been surprising to me. Others, well, not so much. A few have been downright shocking, however. This post to the Shiloh Insider highlights what I find to be the single most surprising finding from discussions about the evolving Church.

In each of the discussion settings in which I have found myself, I spoke about the single most dominant dimension that sets Progressive Church Theology apart from its traditional counterpart. In what I take to be traditional church theology, the purpose of the church is to serve its constituency, its membership. The aim of the church is to guarantee the salvation of those who rely on it for mediation or provision of a spiritual program that leads to personal, eternal reward instead of punishment. The Church exists and works for its members. After all, members pay the bills. They expect a product in exchange. That product is their own salvation. Members also expect the service of the Church, especially in times of the BIG THREE...hatch, match and dispatch. Members expect to receive from the Church whatever services they deem necessary to their spiritual well being.

The Church that follows this traditional (practical) principle had been formed through centuries of theological and social development. For a very long time, this is how Church worked. It centered around the needs of its membership and worked to meet those social, spiritual, practical, economic and political requirements. Fellowship groups formed around membership identity groups. Working groups served within congregations to meet the needs of the community of faith. This Church created an entitled and self-serving membership. It gave rise to generations that expected the Church to do something for them, entertain them, socialize them, train them up to be good people.

Through the centuries, the notion of a Church that calls and equips persons in Christian vocation all but disappeared. That theology has been rediscovered in the Progressive Church model. Persons who belong to Progressive churches have a sense of Christian Vocation. They are empowered to perform the work of Christ Jesus in the contemporary setting and called to embody Jesus' work through its own sacrifice and service. I have referred to this recently as our "representational incarnation." We are Christ's ongoing presence and continuing work in the world.

This is Christian Vocation. It is that to which we are called and that for which we are empowered. Persons do not join these congregations to enter into some spiritual quid pro quo, from which they benefit, but to engage, mind, body and soul in the work to which each is called and for which everyone is empowered. Persons live out the "representational incarnation" in the sacrificial ministry that each offers in the world to those whom they might benefit through their effort.It is not for the members, but for those in the community whom the members serve.

But people do not like the term "Christian Vocation." They want something softer and kinder, something that does not seem so very work-related. Yet, that is precisely the point. The ministry to which we are called in our "representational incarnation" is work. It is our life-work. It is that for which we are empowered and that to which we are called.

Progressive Church theology is vocationally oriented. It does not work if the Church fails in its vocational training. Shiloh has a strong grasp on this simple fact of Progressive theology. We know that we are called to serve, to work, to fulfill our representational incarnation by replicating Christ's sacrifice in, to, with, and for the communities that we are called to serve.