Monday, November 12, 2007
Furthermore...
Perhaps, conversely, every church must be a little traditional as well. Upon further reflection, it really is not a blank page when we consider how to be the church. Perhaps we should begin with scripture, not market research, "think tanks" or slogans? Just a thought. And yes, I am a bit confused these days. One thing though, it is much more important to BE the church than to DO church.
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3 comments:
I think all too often, regardless of what church one attends, belongs to, we are all guilty at one time or another of thinking of the church as just this structure that we show up there on Sunday or special occasions and then walk away, forgetting it is us, WE, the members who are the CHURCH -it is not the building or the organizational structure within, but US, everyone of us, who represents the CHURCH universal. Or am I wrong to think that?
I hope you will expand on your thinking with respect to these last couple of posts.
I'm a great adherent of tradition. Most of what I have read about the emergent church (and I admit, I haven't read a lot) seems to reference traditions hundreds of years old, though I'm not sure the writers know that.
The idea of a blank slate seems to me about as impossible as thinking of a newborn baby as a blank slate, a concept discarded some time ago. (And mothers of twins always raise our eyebrows at the idea of a blank slate, having seen from the first second after birth how distinctive the personalties of babies are. I suppose that as a consequence I tend to extend the same type of suspicion to all claims for fresh starts.)
Anyway, I am very interested in your reflections and ideas, so hope you write more!
GG, thanks! I hope I write more too, because that might mean I've got something a little figured out! Jeni, you are not wrong--you are absolutely right. I have been known to have our church folks turn to each other and say out loud, "The Church is US." The church is God's people, not the building and not the denomination. And whether we worship with a liturgy and follow the lectionary or whether we are very unstructured or whether we are a mix of both, who we ARE is more significant to God than how we do stuff.
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