1. Let us appreciate the church but let us reimagine it. So I want each of you now to think of your church and mentally describe it to yourself. What is it like? I am sure it is full of good and earnest people. The work goes on faithfully week after week. And I have a pretty good idea of your church because most churches are the same; similar things go on in them. It is recognizable.. as the hymn puts it: ”˜In heavenly love abiding, no change my heart shall fear, for safe in such confiding, for nothing changes here!’
So, if you and I want to start on a process of re-imagining the church perhaps we have to go back to basics and, for me, the starting point would be the Great Commission: ”˜Go and preach the gospel’. What I notice from my study of the bible is that both the Hebrew word for congregation, qahal, and the Greek word for church, ecclesia, are not static words but active words….
My second affirmation is that: Our task is to nurture fellow Christians but also to grow authentic disciples. And this affirmation is about moving from encouraging fellow believers to moving them on into discipleship. Consider in your mind now, some people who come along to church but as far as you know are rather passive Christians. They are faithful in attendance but that is the extent of their involvement in church life. We might long to see them developing as a public Christian. How might that happen?
Marvelous. Vintage George Carey. I hope everyone takes the time to read this inspirational address by the former ABoC. I fully agree with his four basic points, which are actually quite modestly phrased. However, if they were actually embraced and widely acted upon, they would prove transformative in many congregations.
I also love that key verse the good bishop cited from 1 Sam. 10. Like Saul, we all need to be surrounded by “valiant” men (and women), “whose hearts God has touched.”
If I may brag on my own diocese for a moment, the ACNA Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic had its annual synod last weekend, and it was a great joy. It is a young but vibrant and growing diocese, filled with clergy and lay leaders who are “valiant men whose hearts God has touched.” The high point for me was when a dozen men who are planting new churches in our region stood in front of the assembly and briefly described how they were trying to win their communities for Christ. Church planters are ineed a valiant lot, and their excitement and dedication was contagious.
David Handy+