We Shall Not Be Moved | Hire Pastor Liz as a Consultant |

Friends,

I just spent an amazing weekend at the Iowa Episcopal Diocesan Convention! What a joy. I got to talk about how small churches can be engaged in the local community. About Asset Based Community Development and Community Organizing. And then about how we are called to love enemies as the Keynote address. The whole weekend explored the ways we are "Together in Christ".

It is lucky it was such a delight because I got caught in the flight cancellations and delays! It took a long time to get home!

What is the Purpose of Church?

I grew up with "Faith Without Works is Dead" hanging where other families may have had "God bless this house". We talked a lot about what we are doing with our faith.

But is that a statement about Christian behavior or church behavior? What is the purpose of church? Is Christian purpose and the purpose of church the same?

I think many of the arguments about whether politics belongs in church are dependent on what you think is the message of Jesus Christ. If you think the message is to be nice, be forgiven, find inner peace, and to be sent in the correct direction at death, then politics really don't fit into that scheme. Church then would be a place for peaceful worship; quiet time to connect to God and to others.

But even if you think that Christians must take up their cross, care for the least of these, release the captives, and that faith without works is dead, you might not want politics at church.

I've met good Christian leaders who believe that the purpose of church is to support individuals in their life of faith. It is to be the resting station, the learning place, the comfort when things go wrong. As such we might hear ideas for personal action while at church, but the church itself would not be a community of action. Much of the focus would be on recovery, healing, personal transformation. A church with this view might have book groups and outside speakers, and might have sermons and worship themes about what individuals can do. But it would mostly be a place that isn't constantly pushing for community action.

That's not me. I think church is called to proclaim good news. I think we are called as a community to proclaim good news.

Matthew 28:19-20 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spiritand teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

What is "everything Jesus has commanded us"? To free the captives, to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to visit the prisoner, to care for the widow and the orphan. To take up our cross and follow Jesus' model of life. I think these are group assignments.

Jesus of course never met in a church. Although the gospel of Matthew may be addressed to a church community it doesn't provide much of what church is like. I do notice that Jesus calls peter out of the boat (out of the building?), and Peter walks on water (does the impossible) right up til he notices the risks and becomes afraid.

Matthew also insists we are blessed when we are persecuted. I don't think the early Christians were persecuted for singing beautiful songs or for offering support and comfort. They were persecuted for going against the status quo.

And of course the command to take up our cross and follow Jesus is clearly a call to risky action.

Who do you believe Jesus is? If he is completely God, or even mostly God, then perhaps we are called only to worship and admire him. To offer praise.

For me, the most important identity of Jesus is as the new Adam. Not that I feel it all fell apart with Adam, but that Jesus, like Adam originally, is the model of who we are to be as human beings. We are created in God's image, and, in Psalm 8, as little less then God. But we haven't known how to live up to that image. Jesus, God-incarnate, modeled for us how to live up to the divine that we have in us. Jesus is the human one, the one who shows us how to be fully human.

And so we are called to act like Jesus. Not because we can live up to all that Jesus was, but because he is the ideal of what we are striving for.

That all can sounds individualistic once again. But as individuals we know that following Jesus' model is impossible. It is only in community that we can effectively be the Body of Christ. Because of the failures of every human, we cannot live up to the model of Jesus. But as a congregation, as a community, as a group of people, we together can strive for this. We each fill the holes of the people around us, we each bring a different gift. It takes the whole church universal to fill the model set before us.

How does your church act as the body of Christ? What questions does this raise for you? Reply to this email to let me know what's happening. ​
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Mavis Staples singing "We Shall Not Be Moved"

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I'm available this winter and next spring as a workshop leader, consultant, keynote speaker. We can talk about evangelism, small church vitality, or being part of the resistance in your community. No cookie cutters, each event is planned to meet your specific audience.

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