Borderland Churches III
The third chapter in Gary Nelson’s book is entitled “Recovering Our Roots: God’s Intent for His Church.” This chapter opens with a case study from the book of Ephesians and the question, “How do we lose our first love?” He proceeds from here to work at recovering a biblical ecclesiology.
Gary asks us to consider replacing the word “theology” with the word, “image.” Just as every church has an implicit theology, it also has a dominant self-image. (And as I am reading this, I am thinking of a similar approach articulated by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost around “story” — we story our experience and what we notice and articulate says much about who we are. To bring change requires us to change the story).
One of the inevitable challenges, and this is true also within the framework of narrative therapy, is that our dominant image of who we are as a community may have little to do with God’s intention. Gary contrasts our need to theologize with the need for grounded reflection. God’s redemptive work in the world is not about creating theology, after all, but creating a living people, a new community, living in the shalom of the coming kingdom. “We get sidetracked into focusing on the activity of the church rather than its purpose,” and as a result we focus on models that will bring us success without asking deeper questions. Gary pushes us back to the questions, “who, what, how and why” of God’s purpose.
Who is the community of God’s intent? We are “called out” and called to serve, not to rule. We are an alternative community.
What is this community like? We are “called together” for the sake of the world under the reign of a Just King. We must live out the reality of this Lordship, embodying the truth, a sign and a foretaste of the new creation. Moreover, we are priests to the world and to one another.
How will this community function? We are “called for” God’s purposes in the world.The variety of images of the church in the New Testament all describe something vital in God’s heart for His people, but a key image is a community of disciples – learners and apprentices to Jesus.
Why does this community exist? We represent to the world God’s Kingdom reign. the Church is not an end in itself. Our participation in God’s reign comes under a rhythm of three themes: community, witness and service. “We must discover and imagine what it means to be the church in the particular neighbourhood and context to which we have been called.” (57)
As a Borderland community we live within the missio Dei — we are sent. “The church’s mission,” says Robert Webber, “is to be the presence of the kingdom.” Lesslie Newbigin makes a distinction between the missionary dimension of the church and its missionary intention. These two dimensions describe both ethos and action, presence and performance.
This chapter was not what I expected. I expected to hear something about historical traditions, perhaps an argument for the recovery of liturgical rhythms. Instead, we have a short tour of ecclesiology. The next chapter will consider leadership, and then the following chapter will focus on strategies for moving a community into the Borderlands..