So, Jake has an excellent heartfelt rant up over on his blog, about the church and one of the ways in which she's really "missing" the point... which is ironic, now that I think of it, because his rant was inspired by a sermon at our church on Jonah and one of the ways in which he really missed the point... huh. What I love best about what Jake had to say tho is that it isn't just a "wow, the church is messed up" sort of a rant - rather it comes from a place of broken-heartedness, and a true desire to see the church healed and whole and everything she was meant to be.
Which includes something Jake calls "unition" - a term he coined when our 20somethings ministry merged a year ago with the college ministry at our church - and it's just sort of stuck. It means uniting, really, but I think it sounds cooler - the unition of the church... I don't know - it just sounds less... violent, maybe, than the uniting of the church...
Anyway, Ephesians 2-3 has the vision - and is the passage from which I will be preaching my first official sermon (gulp... shudder... mini-panic attack... ok, breathing now) :) - and in so many ways I think the church still struggles to understand that vision. I'm not convinced that denominationalism isn't as potentially divisive as the Jew/Gentile split of the early church, tho it is a reality of church life in our day, and denominations do exist for very good reasons...
So the question of the day is: can the church be united in spite of or maybe even because of her denominational differences?
Oh, but it gets better... if the church is not an institution but is rather comprised of actual people, what about relational tension? what about the person that you love but just can't talk to? are you breaking the unity of the church by avoiding them? or is it possible to be okay about not being "in relationship" per se with a brother or a sister in Christ and still be united in spirit?
These are the nice simple questions I think about over dinner. And I've got some thoughts, but I'd be interested to hear yours, while I'm still pondering away the other simple questions about which I've promised Erin a post. :)
1 comment:
"So the question of the day is: can the church be united in spite of or maybe even because of her denominational differences?'
This really gets down to the meat of it Hap. It takes different types of "churches" to reach different types of people and unity is harder to achieve when people have the "my dad is stronger than your dad" mentality.
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