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A blessed and happy New Year to you all!
Back in December with the beginning of Advent, I began to use this weekly communication as a vehicle for in-depth discussion about our guiding statements: mission, vision, main pillars, and values. We began this discussion by focusing on our worship life because we are first and foremost a worshipping community. Then we began a discussion on what it means for us to be a community BEING FORMED into cradle-to-grave disciples of the Living Christ. That discussion was paused to focus for two weekly messages on the celebration of Christmas. Today we are back to the conversation on formation.
Christianity is the greatest idea ever introduced to humanity. I answered my call to leave a career in the business world 25 years ago in order to become a pastor because I was, and still am, convinced that the Christian claim and its hope for the world is the only vision that works. I am Lutheran because I believe that Lutheranism in its essence best approximates the nature of the community the Holy Spirit began to form after the woman ran from the empty tomb shouting, "He is risen!" My love affair and devotion to Lutheranism is not because I think of being Lutheran as a noun but rather as a verb, as a particular way of hearing the gospel and living it out. At the very heart of Lutheranism is the claim, "Christ alone."
As has been stated many times, the challenge the church faces is that the name, "Christian," as well as "Christianity," has fallen on hard times. A lot of this is self-inflicted because of the ills and trappings of organized religion and what has happened to a church that suffers from a "Constantinian hangover." More of it is also self-inflicted because Christians have worked to give being "Christian" a bad name. In a somewhat recent study of perceptions among North American 18 to 29 year-olds, for ninety percent of those in the survey the name "Christian" held a negative impression. Among the vast majority of this group Christian means to be judgmental, hypocritical, and condemning of homosexuals.
On the other hand, when persons are asked what it means to be a "follower of Jesus," the receptiveness is quite different. When the church got going, the last thing on Jesus' mind was the formation of a new religion, particularly institutional religion. It was institutional religion that helped to nail him to a cross. What Jesus began and which the Holy Spirit formed was a movement. Never did Jesus ever command us to "go and recruit members" or "make great church goers." He did say, "Form disciples." He did say, "Follow me." He did say, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." He did say, "You will be my witnesses." In other words, "You, church, will be the continuation of me in the world." That is why the Apostle Paul refers to us as "the body of Christ."
Part of the dilemma that the church faces is that in its "Constantinian hangover," it adopted a worldly, institutional, political, and academic model of faith formation. That line of thinking believed that if one could just participate in the institutional rituals of the church and be taught the right information and doctrine, then one would be a "good Christian." This line of thinking didn't work.
Information does not bring about transformation. Conversion does. Persons and communities do not become followers of Jesus by studying him, reading books about him, going to classes, committee meetings, or voting on him. This is not to say that there is no value in any of these activities. There is, but they are collectively inadequate. We become transformed by truly paying attention to Jesus and following him. In other words, we become grasped by the freedom and hope his death and resurrection grants us, take his words seriously as the author of life, and endeavor to live them. The more we attempt to think like, dream like, love like, and act like Jesus the more we become formed into what he desires for us.
We are already seeing what this looks like at Epiphany. Next week I will conclude, for the time being, this conversation about formation by lifting up what it means to be a "community of character."
Thanks for reading.
That all might thrive and serve in his grace!
Pastor Rick
pastorrick@epiphanysuwanee.org
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