An interesting discussion took place in the course of this past Sunday's Discovery Time service, held at Shiloh weekly at 7:00 p.m. on Sundays. Its topic was worship and church involvement.
I had delivered a casual message about the possibility that what we do in times of worship, what words we use, what sacrifices, what liturgies, are far less important than what we do when we go out into our communities. I used the phrase, "It doesn't matter what we do here, but what we do out there."
The discussion started with a question. "If it doesn't matter what we do in here, then why do we do this? Why do we come to church?" In retrospect, I should have added to my initial statement the phrase, "to the fulfillment of God's will and salvation." That is, "It doesn't matter to the fulfillment of God's will and salvation what we do here in worship. What really matters for the fulfillment of God's will and salvation is what we do when we go from here."
The message was meant to target the value of the church going out into the community to develop relations, to create community, to reflect the relational focus of Christ Jesus. It quickly became a consideration of whether or not we should bother with coming to worship, be educated, to share community, or to engage together in mission and ministry.
I hold to the core message. Jesus' ministry was about creating relationships. It was targeted to those who were outside of community, especially the religious community and tradition in which Jesus had been raised. That tradition practiced a firm legalism that excluded persons. Relationships were conditioned upon standards of the law and one's ability to live within its expectations, no matter how unreasonable for some. The Church is called to represent Christ Jesus in initiating relationship with those who stand outside, looking in. To do so is far more important to fulfillment of God's will than whatever orthodoxies we follow, to what doctrines we hold, what creeds we recite or what liturgies we chant.
This does not mean that worship, Christian education and church fellowship are without value. In fact, each is crucial to the practice of salvation and the fulfillment of God's will. The message simply implies that the church must gather around an "outcome based" model of worship, c.e. or church fellowship. Each must be geared to achieving God's will and practicing salvation in our communities that lie outside the church.
How might church differ if its entire mission and ministry lay in motivating, equipping, calling and sending laborers into God's vineyard, if the ministry of the church were focused on the creation of relationships and the formation of community? How would that aim change what we do in the church today? Would it make us any more relevant? Could we stem the tide of church decline? Would we be any more faithful to the ministry of Jesus Christ?
Join the discussion.
See You Sunday!
6 comments:
Curious .... , I've watched this blog posting all week, and ... no responses. I guess you said it very clearly, ... but it seemed you left some unanswered questions? Folks just busy "doing," I guess? .... Just curious ...
Jim, I could not agree more. I too am curious about the lack of comment. Even among those who I know to be readers, there is very little discussion. C'mon, folks,get off the sideline and get into the game!
Jim, I could not agree more. I too am curious about the lack of comment. Even among those who I know to be readers, there is very little discussion. C'mon, folks,get off the sideline and get into the game!
So I understand that there is a newer blog that has been posted, but I feel like this one is a better springboard for my question, because it is something I have been thinking about constantly since the Discovery Time discussion you were talking about.
There seems to be a shift in recent weeks (if I am following correctly) to a view of Kingdom as something that is brought about in relationships. The way it was described the other week, it was as if Kingdom is brought about within a relationship when the individuals involved are interacting in... a sort of interpersonal pinnacle? As if, when the individuals' relationship reaches the point in which it is the best embodiment of God's will between those individuals, Kingdom is established (within that relationship).
As we have discussed Kingdom over the last several years, I feel that is has been painted as a much broader, large-scale sort of cultural shift, in which everybody would be out fulfilling God's will in the world. I know that this is not accurate, but it seemed to be painted as almost Heaven on Earth (though it could be argued that if all persons were living according to God's will in the world, then the comparison to Heaven would be accurate).
I have thought and thought about this over the last few weeks. Trying to decide if this was a "retcon" of sorts, trying to change the view of Kingdom to something smaller, and slightly more manageable, or if this was the sort of natural evolution of the Kingdom theory, which would have been much harder to explain in this "dispersed" context if we had not been previously exposed to the sort of "pandemic" Kingdom it seemed we originally talked about.
So I guess what I want to ask is, why has this shift occurred? From talk about Kingdom as a widespread, cultural phenomena to Kingdom as something that is brought about within individual relationships.
After weeks of thinking about it, here's my new theory.
The "two Kingdoms" as they seem to have become within my head, are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the newer, relationship based Kingdom that we have been talking about lately could actually be considered the building blocks of the cultural shift type of Kingdom that we have been talking about for years. Maybe this is how Kingdom spreads to BECOME Kingdom (maybe the plural of Kingdom is Kingdom, I guess is what I'm getting at).
It would seem that as Kingdom is brought about within interpersonal relationships, it becomes more likely that Kingdom will be established within other relationships radiating outward from this initial Kingdom, and it could spread exponentially. Even the widespread cultural Kingdom (which I suppose would be the endgame in this scenario), would involve a relationship between Man and God.
In this case, it makes sense that we have shifted the conversation to the smaller-scale, interpersonal relationship Kingdom for a myriad of reasons.
Justin
(Sorry about the deleted post above this, I realized that my user name was no longer my actual name lol)
Justin, thank you for your thoughtful comment. I agree with you in many important ways. I would add only a samantic point. The relational kingdom is means and micro to the macro social/cultural kingdom.
People ask often how they might participate in the process of creating a social/cultural kingdom. I think that the only answer is relational. Like the proverbial mustard seed, open and positive relationship is insideous. It soon affects culture and the social order.
The Civil Rights Movement is a good example, I think. Whether such a process works from the top down or from the bottom up is to be debated. We have tried legislating and coercing. Neither has worked. Jesus worked in the opposite direction, I think.
Thanks again for your participation in the discussion.
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