Saturday, September 8, 2007

We are an experiment

This is an experiment in finding the prophetic life of a congregation.

Can God be seen in the life of an ordinary congregation? If so, how is God seen in this liberal, yet traditional Lutheran congregation? Perhaps we can listen to each other, remember with one another and see how the Gospel is unfolding about us. Perhaps we can gain greater sensitivity to and regard for the work of the Holy Spirit within this body.

Does God have a vision for ordinary congregations? If so, how can we begin to see what God sees in us, around us and through us? Perhaps that word comes from a preacher, perhaps from a first-time visitor, perhaps from a child in Sunday School, perhaps from a hidden poet down in the next pew. Perhaps that vision is right infront of all of us. Perhaps we can name that vision and share in seeing that vision come to be.

I believe the answer is Yes. God has a vision for us, and we bear a revelation of God in our midst.

We live in an age when the most successful churches pay more attention to marketing trends and slick packaging than they do to the subtle ways of the Holy Spirit in the life of a community, to scripture, the liturgy and our hardy spiritual traditions. American religion is in the belly of mass consumption, neither in the heart or the mind. We are no more worshipers than we are consumers of religious products and productions. Our God is our belly. And some of us are sick.

Ok, here we are, a small congregation of no great importance. We don't want to get big or become influential or even fix the sagging floors in our fellowship hall. Yet deep down, we really do hunger to see God at work within us. We thrist for the Spirit and the Word with us in our worship. We long to hear a fresh Gospel of wholeness and inclusion to resortore people to rightful and loving covenant. And we know that such a gospel is only good news if it takes root within us, in our lives individually and in community. Only then is it news worth sharing, the rest is empty packaging and posturing.

So we are a just an experiment. We must wait and see what God will do. We must take some time for observation and reflection. This is not a time for our "visioning", for our projects and programs, or for our image or agenda. No, we are an empty petri dish with a swab from the soil of this and a few yeast cells from the life above. God watches us to see what will emerge. This is what God does in the laboratory of the lives in of our ordinary congregations.


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

oh, i can hardly wait! thank you james, for launching this 'experiment'. discovering through each other, the gift of God with us will be a perfect precurser to advent.
count me in!