On mission - Post 2: Elizabeth Drescher

While I am working through thoughts on Mission, I thought Elizabeth Drescher's piece at Episcopal Cafe provided good food for thought, as well as the 20+ comments posted there in response.

Do we struggle with "singing a new song" in the church?  How so?  When I think of Jesus, I don't think of someone who was merely thinking about playing the "old standards"...he seemed to be pushing us beyond the same old same old.  However, we are often seeking the security of nostalgia for its own sake.  Is this what God is calling us to?  Is this what the Holy Spirit is empowering us to be?

The Church's Mission, Let's be honest

by Elizabeth Drescher posted at Episcopal Cafe

You know, I sometimes wonder whether the Israelites heard the call of the psalm we read today as I sometimes do: "Sing to the Lord a new song...? Really?"

I mean, let's be honest, even in the most literal sense, we struggle with this idea, resisting in our churches music that might nudge us even ever so slightly out of the nineteenth century. Oh, I'm not talking here about going all "U2-charist," or bringing in hip hop hymns that'll get the young folks dancing before the Lord. After all, we know that the few thriving emergent communities in our church are more likely to sing songs from the Middle Ages--a little Gregorian Chant, a remix of Hildegard of Bingen, or, to modernize just a smidge, some shape note tunes--than they are to be jamming to the spiritual stylings of Gospel Ganstaz. But they are singing those old songs in a new way--inhabiting them bodily, infusing them with a spirit that is often missing from our churches, truly "lifting every voice" in glorious praise.

Outside of these communities--the Crossing at St. Paul's Cathedral in Boston, Open Cathedral at St. Mark's in Seattle, Thad's in Los Angeles, Transmission in New York--"singing a new song" has, in the least nuanced, least metaphorical way, been something of a challenge for us.

And that makes me worry about how far along God's path we may be able to travel these days as we seek to realize the peaceable kingdom Isaiah prophesied. If we can't get the theme song down, what chance do we have to be so much as bit players in the whole new cosmic drama--the heartwarming story of true love realized across the earth that, as Paul reminds us, Jesus narrated with his life, death, and resurrection?

Of course, Paul points in his letter to the Ephesians to what throws us off tune in our efforts to sing a new, harmonious song, to live as one diverse body: barriers and the hostilities they cause among us. What do these barriers look like in our church in particular? If you've just lept in your mind to things like women's ordination or diverse opinions on human sexuality, I'm going to suggest that you guess again . . . 

Read the rest HERE

Do churches want transformation?

"But recalling that Jesus himself was unable to transform the Temple establishment of his day, and remembering that Paul was run out of a good many more synagogues than he was welcome in, I'm not sure that any amount of training can equip seminarians for transformation in churches that are quite happy with how they are—or were, thank you very
much."


~Brian McLaren

Can there be Unity without Uniformity?

A brief question that encapsulates some of the issues that I tried to address in my honors thesis was the question of "Can there be Unity but not Uniformity?" within the Church, within the gathered community, within even other entities such as schools, families, organizations? My assumption is that there can be Unity but not Uniformity, though it will require a dynamism that most communities have difficulty tolerating and celebrating. My assumption needs to be challenged and tested ... as it probably is in many local churches, as well as in the Global Anglican Communion.

Can there be Unity but not Uniformity?

Summary (abstract) of the work...

An ecclesiology of communion that is Trinitarian offers a model for the Church of living together in unity though not in uniformity. This model may allow for and affirm prophetic voices from the margins so that the church might respond to the cries of a world in need. This thesis attempts to explore and describe an ecclesiology of communion that is influenced by Trinitarian theology. In this awareness of difference and tension, this model of ecclesiology is dynamic and transformational. The hope is that this ecclesiology may describe a more dynamic Church that not only exists in judgment but also exists in action to dismantle systems of oppression.

This thesis begins with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his sense that the Church is constituted socially by Christ. He states “The church is the hidden Christ among us.”[1] In this ecclesiology, Christ is at the center, and communion is known within and between people as they encounter Christ and one another. Further, the “church is only the church when it exists for others.”

The poetic and mystical descriptions of church by Rowan Williams offer a model that the church, along with the creation itself, is gift. As God made the world and as God gave his son to the world, God also gave the church. As such, the church exists in a contingent way, it exists in judgment. As a community of the forgiven, the members of the church are made up of persons, not mere individuals. The persons of the church can be likened to the persons of the Trinity, living in unity and difference, in the mystical Godhead. Finally, in Rowan Williams description, Christ is present in the interaction between people as they encounter and welcome those who are different, that is; the other.

Lastly, to evaluate how communion exists in judgment and action this thesis takes up James Cone’s critiques of ecclesiology. For Cone, “The Christian church is that community of persons who ‘got the hint,’” and thus refused to be content with human pain and suffering. Refusing merely to speak of the church mystically or metaphysically, Cone challenges conventional (white, European) assumptions and claims about church and also challenges even the highly nuanced theology of Rowan Williams. If the church universal and local embraces such a model, it may move from individualism to community, from inward gazing to outward mission, from a focus on the in crowd to focus on all those at the margins.

Living into a model of the dynamic church, the persons of the church would hear the cry of the poor and oppressed and then act to end oppression, to see the injustices of our world, and act to counter them. As we turn to one another in our local churches, in our larger church bodies, and in our worldwide churches, we rely on the work of Christ to bring us to full unity. As we turn to one another with the ordinary, time tested practices of our tradition, we approach one another with humility, with an awareness of our own brokenness, and our own incompleteness. From the interaction between and among the members of the church there emerges a personal and communal transformation into a church that is dynamic, outward looking and responds to a world in need. In the contexts of the Anglican Communion and The Episcopal Church, we are perhaps at a turning point, an opportunity, or a catastrophe, depending on one’s perspective.

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[1] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich No Rusty Swords: Letters, Lectures and Notes – 1928-1936- From the Collected Works, Volume I (Collins, London: 1965)