“The unexamined (or the unreflected upon) life is not worth living.”
It is believed that the ancient philosopher Socrates spoke those words some 3000 years ago. They were floating around in my mind the other day as I reflected upon the ongoing conversation about what a missional church would look like.
Those folks who attended the June 5 “Abide in Me “ Conference and listened to Reggie McNeal speak about the “missional” church gathered with me this past Thursday evening to “debrief” the conference and continue the conversation. The group, which will meet again on July 8, identified three starting points.
- We decided this conversation needs to come into the pulpit.
- We acknowledged that each of us personally needed to begin speaking about what we have heard and spoken to each other and how we are living our own lives in light of what we have learned.
- We ask and encourage YOU, our sisters and brothers, to begin blessing people in your daily lives.
In my own quiet time, many questions and thoughts come to my mind:
If “God’s mission has a church,” then what role does our congregation have in that mission?
If missional churches have an external and not an internal focus, what does that look like in how we organize our collective time, talents and treasure in the living of our day to day ministry life?
If missional churches do not worry about traditional ways of evaluation (membership and financial numbers), what do we have to change, or even throw out, as we look forward at how we evaluate our mission effectiveness?
If missional churches concentrate focus on “people” development rather than “program” development, how does that impact the way we offer Christian education and spiritual formation classes?
If missional churches are not about doing different missional activities in place of or in addition to current programs and ministries, then what are we to do on our journey towards becoming and being a congregation which is engaged in God’s mission in the world beginning with the community around us?
As we begin to open our minds and hearts to this conversation, I think it would be wise to take our own advice from the meeting and get back to basics, to get back to Jesus. We need to reopen our minds and, more importantly, our hearts to what the Scriptures have to say that will inform us about being the church.
So let’s start at the beginning. Let’s start with Genesis, specifically chapters 12 and 17, which tell the story of what God desires for His creation, His people.
Genesis 12.1-2: Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
Genesis 17.4: “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.”
Genesis 17.7: “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.”
Promise and the People of God
Three themes come out of these verses that are important in our future conversations about what it means to be a missional church. First is the theme of promise. God makes a promise to Abraham and his “offspring.” Second is the theme of being the people of God. God’s people have a specific responsibility in the world. Third is the theme of covenant. God establishes a covenant with his people which defines the nature of the relationship between God and His people. We will take up the notion of covenant over a five-week period beginning August 29 so we will begin to lay the foundation of the first two themes.
What is the promise? God makes a promise to Abraham that comes in two parts. First, God promises to bless Abraham and to make of him and his descendants a great nation that would be able to extend the initial blessing of God to others. Second, God promises to be “God to [Abraham] and to [his] offspring after” him.
These two parts orbit each other throughout the Abraham narrative and show up over and over again throughout the whole of Scripture. As Christians we believe that they find their fullness and fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus.
Paul picks these up in the third chapter of his letter to the Galatians. In the midst of controversy about whether or not Gentile believers of Christ should be circumcised in order to fulfill the Law, Paul points to the promise God makes to Abraham to fashion for Himself a people, a nation, to bless and to be a blessing. Paul points out to his opponents that God’s promise predates the Law and that the Law is unable to fulfill God’s promise. He also makes clear that God has held up His end of the covenant and identifies Jesus as “the offspring” through whom the promise might be extended to the world. “..if you are Christ's,” Paul argues, “then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.”
More importantly, Paul proclaims to the church in
We can now see, Paul argues, that the blessing given to Abraham is to be shared with all people and this blessing and responsibility is now passed onto this new incarnation of the people of God. The people of God, that is the followers of Christ, are blessed to be a blessing to all people. The people of God embody the promise of God made to Abraham and fulfilled in Christ Jesus. The message is, in effect, “You Galatians, with all your differences in gender, race, creed and everything else you can think up, are, like it or not, God’s people who are the inheritors of the ‘Blessed to be a blessing’ role promised to Abraham and fulfilled in Jesus, and this means you must stop finding ways to be divided and be the One people through which Christ Jesus’ redeeming and renewing life can be given to the world. You are blessed! Go be a blessing!”
The first verse of the third chapter of Galatians begins, “O foolish Galatians!” If we substituted “Episcopalians” or “North American church members” or “St. George folk” for “Galatians,” the rest of the chapter would apply to us. The details would be different but it fits, doesn’t it? And the conclusion is also the same: “We are blessed. We must go and bless others.” The challenge is that we have no power in us to make this shift.
We are, by virtue of our baptism, one in Christ. By baptism we become a part of the People of God, the Body of Christ, the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, through Christ Jesus. And, as Jesus has promised, we receive the Holy Spirit who works in us and through us, who blesses and who makes it possible for us to be a blessing.
To reconnect to our opening reflections, we can identify that our first, baby step toward becoming a missional church is to open ourselves up to the power of Jesus’ promised Holy Spirit who can move us beyond our worldly differences and move us towards God’s desired future for His world, a world He loves so much He sent His Son to redeem at a great, great cost. We can recognize that we are the inheritors of Abraham’s role to take our blessing and to share it with others around us who are in great need of that life-changing blessing.
Reggie McNeal shared with all of us a practice of his at restaurants. At the arrival of the meal, he shares with his server that he is about to offer a prayer of blessing to God. He then asks the server if there is anything at all the he can ask God give as blessing to the server. He states that sometimes the reaction is shock or confusion. He also states that sometimes the answer is “no.” But he also shared that over time those to whom he offers this will often come asking for a blessing and that God always moves in and answers that prayer in a way that opens up a conversation about the power of God and the love of Jesus.
In one instance one attendee at another of his conferences took McNeal at this challenge. He began to ask the barista at the coffee shop he frequented how he could pray for God’s blessing in his life. The response was surprising and exciting as his prayer list grew to others at the shop. It was so amazing to him that one day at different coffee shop he asked the barista how he could pray for God’s blessing in her life and was met with the excited response: “You are one of those blessing people!!”
Do you want to be “one of those blessing people” here in your own community?
I challenge you to join those of us who have already begun this practice in restaurants around this church. I invite you to both recognize your life as blessed and your response to that blessing is to be a blessing to others. I encourage you to reflect on your life this week through these questions on your “Sermon Notes” insert:
In what ways has God blessed me to be a blessing to others?
What can I do today to offer God’s blessing to another person?
What are some of the ways I am already offering God’s blessings to others in my everyday life?
O heavenly Father, who has filled the world with beauty: Open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works; that, rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you and your people with gladness; for the sake of him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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