The Call of the Spirit

In my new call as Congregational Organizer for an ecumenical social justice non-profit, I’ve been doing a lot of reading as I prepare to develop a congregation based affordable housing program.  I’ve been reading an assortment of books that are putting voice to what I’ve believed and envisioned Christ’s church was called to be.  It’s exciting and empowering and dangerous and overwhelming to find that the Church, in all its’ humanness is falling so far short of what it could be with the power of the Holy Spirit.

One of the most voice-giving, affirming books I’ve read is  Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing, by Dennis A. Jacobsen. (Fortress Press: Minneapolis.  2001)   Jacobsen says that “the church has a responsibility to point the world as it is, to the world as it should be.” (pg 11)  He goes on to say that:

            “Biblically speaking, the preeminent activity of the church is in the public arena,

not in the sanctuary.  The Holy Spirit calls and gathers the church and sends the church into the world with the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ.   The Holy Spirit
takes the church into the public arena so that the church can be the church…..
To resist this summons to public life is to resist the Holy Spirit.

The church enters the public arena because it is mandated to do so by the Great Commission of Jesus…  The primary concern of the church in the public arena is not to find more members to fill the pews of the sanctuary.  The church is sent into the public arena with the ethical imperatives of Jesus.  The church is to proclaim the kingdom of God over against the kingdoms of the world.”

I resonate with Jacobsen because this is what I believe about the church and this is how I pastored a church.  The congregation believed the church existed for them; that it was about them.  The church was more of a social club; a time to get together.  A place to be comfortable.  The church died.  It closed. 

This is the kind of church I want to be a part of.  A church that gathers on Sundays to worship our Lord and Savior.  A church that gathers for fellowship and communion.  A church that gathers to refresh, to pray, to fill.  And then a church that disperses and spends its' time being the church in the community.  A church that gets its' hands dirty in the messiness of life.  A church that speaks up to right the injustices of society.  A church that is merciful.  A church that is hospitable to strangers.  A church that truly follows Jesus and heals and loves with compassion and truth.

 

Being a church that does justice; that’s out in the world uninterested in statistical growth is dangerous.  It’s counterintuitive.  It’s out-of-this-world.  It’s upside down.  But then, so is the kingdom of heaven.

What do you think?