Thursday, February 16, 2012
'GO OUT IN THE STREETS...'
H/T to Andrew Gerns, who posted the video at The Lead.
I agree with Diana Butler Bass, and I have placed her book, Christianity After Religion, on my wish list. People are hungry for God, hungry for fellowship, but in this uncertain age, the church will need to work out ways of going out to where people are, rather than placing the entire focus on getting people to come into our places of worship. I'm not at all suggesting that the church abandon services in the buildings. I see going out to the people with Ashes to Go, prayer services, and perhaps even eucharistic services as an addition to in-church services. Who knows but that some of the folks out there might one day come into the building, but the goal should be to serve folks outside the buildings by providing worship and proclamation of the Gospel for them in a community, however temporary the gathering may be.
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Excellent!
ReplyDeleteBut then i've lways found Ms. Butler Bass' work interesting, challenging and affirming.
This title is going on my wish list too Mimi
Thanks for posting this
David, I'm always pleased to be of service. I placed an order with Amazon yesterday, and I would have included the book. I save my lists until I have $25, so I avoid the shipping charges.
ReplyDeleteI think the Church will recover its moral authority only when it finally demonstrates that it is serious about all that Gospel business of loving neighbor as self no matter what, and not just another ideology or faction cherishing ambitions to rule.
ReplyDeleteI think we should always keep in mind the motto of the great state of Missouri, "Show me."
Counterlight, I agree that as Christians we need to live the Gospel for all to see. Still, I was reminded by Tobias Haller that, according to the definition of mission in the BCP, worship and proclamation of the Gospel are just as much mission as the soup kitchen. The church can't afford to lose its center.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it's not even a matter of the soup kitchen or the worship service. Perhaps it's just something as simple as being nice to people and taking them seriously instead of seeing them as mission fodder.
ReplyDeleteExactly, Counterlight. All too often, I see myself as a failure at evangelism, but evangelism is about much more than getting people into a church building. The command from Jesus is to love God and love our neighbor and to do as we would be done to. Forever and ever. Amen. Thus endeth the sermon.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting, June!!!
ReplyDeleteJoe, you're welcome. Good to hear from you.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine, now dead these twenty years I'm sorry to say, once told me that when he was growing up in a Primitive Baptist church, the focus there was not on evangelizing as we think of it, but on attracting others to your faith, wordlessly, by the way you live your life: helpful, kind, patient, loving, etc.
ReplyDeleteA thought which has always stuck with me, though I'm afraid I've not lived up to it very well.
Russ, your friend was wise.
ReplyDeleteTake heart; I haven't lived the Gospel well, either.
I have been frustrated with the approach of some in the church that it is up to the people on the outside to come into the building. The only way they'll even have an interest in seeing what's behind our heavy red doors is if we make those doors more transparent. That will take the efforts of both laity and clergy. And as Counterlight notes, it begins with living out the Gospel by simple things like treating people right, and that whole building up instead of tearing down.
ReplyDeleteSCG, the times they are a-changin', and we will need to adjust. And it's up to all of us.
ReplyDelete