New Baby Interlude

I figured I would take a short break from our march through the Pro Ecclesia Confession to give some details about the birth of our 3rd son.
We came into the hospital around 7am yesterday morning and had prayer with Rev. Stallsworth.  Syndi was in surgery just after 9am. Asher Bryant was born at 9:43am. He was 8lbs 3oz. 20in long.  He is doing very well along with his Mommy. We are both so happy and thanking God.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Mark

Article 4: Marks of the Church

Some context: This is article four of a confession on the nature of the church drafted by pastors and laity in our local community. 
In this article it may seem strange to reject diversity, pluralism and inclusivity, considering that this is the latest wave of church language. But the article does not out right reject this language only the idea the the church "is best defined by diversity, pluralism, and/or inclusivity." To be sure the church is diverse and inclusive but not at the expense of God's ability to transform lives. This simple means that the church does its best work, not when it flings its doors wide open, but when it seeks the transformation of humanity into the children of God. Christianity is demanding and includes discipline. This demanding discipline transforms the church into the people of God called to be in the world but not of the world. The article is trying to start a conversation that includes both God's love and justice. 


IV. Marks of the Church
"We believe in the one holy catholic and apostolic church." (The Nicene Creed)
We believe the essential marks of the Church are: unity (see John 17:20-23), holiness (set apart
for God's purposes), catholicity (universality in faith, practice, and outreach), and apostolicity (message and mission traceable to the apostles). These marks, given by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:1-3), evidence the Church's faithful, attentive response to the gracious Headship of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:4-7).
We reject the assumption that the church is best defined by diversity, pluralism, and/or inclusivity. The radical hospitality of the church is not to be promoted by limiting or eliminating the transformative power of the Gospel that unifies and enculturates the church, and blesses the world. 

Holy Spirit

In the third article the Holy Spirit is affirmed as the sustainer of the church. As the Father calls the church into existence through the Son, the Holy Spirit sustains the life of the church. We spent some time discussing the phrase, "organic growth." What is trying to be conveyed is a sense of constant movement within the church as a whole. The church grows in many ways. All of those changes are connected with one another just as an organism grows as one being. Also we believe it is faithful to the language of Ephesians. 
While the Son builds the church the Holy Spirit guides the congregation. This article speaks implicitly against a pragmatism that suggests the program and direction of the church is guided by "whatever works." This article hopefully challenges our understanding of what works in the church. The church is always seeking guidance through prayer and worship, not through whatever new program claims results.


III. Holy Spirit: Sustainer of the Church
"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place...And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit..." (Acts 2:1,4a)
"...so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love." (Ephesians 4:14-16).


We believe the Holy Spirit gives steadying power, increasing faithfulness in love, and organic growth to the church. Since the first Day of Pentecost, God's Spirit has given life, structure, purpose, and direction to the church.


We reject the assumption that the church can measure her own faithfulness, determine her own identity, and set her own course, according to conventional wisdom. 

Article Two

Following the ancient creeds, article two of the confession speaks of the Son in relation with the gathered church. It is God's eternal Word spoken in the Son that builds the church. What is being rejected is our attempt to establish the church with our own efforts. Often when a church sees itself in crisis, such as dwindling membership, we try and safe guard ourselves and blame each other for the crisis. In these moments we often lack patience and hastily determine that we need a specific program or more relevancy to deflect the crisis (assuming that crisis is not part of God's grace). But the church's main construction is not based on our relevancy, rather the church is called together by God and receives its existence from the Son.
The article starts with the eternal Word, which is Christ Jesus. The Word is eternal therefore anything that is not grounded in the Word can "erode over time." 




II. Son: Builder of the Church
"'And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.'" (Matthew 16:18)
We believe the church receives life from God's eternal Word, and Jesus Christ builds the church by working through Spirit-driven, Word-and-Sacrament ministry transforming the Christian community and witnessing to the larger community.
We reject the assumption that the church builds herself by making herself appealing and attractive to the world -- in appearance, in program, and in preaching and teaching. When Jesus Christ is not the church's builder, what is put together in the name of the church is bound to erode over time.

Article One

I hope that this confession is helpful. I think it does call some current practices of the church into question. This confession is a good point to begin discussion on what we really believe the church is. So here we go into the main body of the confession. 
After the circumstance is stated the confession moves into the body. Article I begins with the call of God the Father, demonstrating that the church exists because God calls the church into existence. It is not a loose affiliation of people, but a distinct relationship of God with God's creation. This article suggests the church is not gathered only to meet needs. The church is not an interest group where people of like minds gather to share their hobbies and interests. Rather the church is brought together by God, not humanity, to live in covenant with the God who called the church into existence. To be sure, we find commonality with in the church, but it is not the "gathering" principle.


OUR CONFESSION
I. Father: Sovereign of the Church
"'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give to your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves; because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.'" (Genesis 26:4-5)
"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy." (I Peter 2:9-10)
We believe that both the Old Testament and the New Testament reveal God initiating a covenantal relationship with a people -- first with Israel, continuing with the Church. God's relationship with the Church is based not on the merits of the people, but on the steadfast love and missional purpose of Almighty God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.
We reject the assumption that the church exists primarily to satisfy the perceived needs of needs-driven individuals. This assumption misunderstands the church to be merely a social organization, in competition with many other such organizations, rather than a people called by Almighty God to covenant. 

"Pro Ecclesia" (For the Church)

For the past few months an ecumenical group of clergy and laity have met, almost monthly, to put together a confession on the nature of the church for our community. I was asked to be a part of this group and have found the experience very rewarding. For the next few weeks I will post sections of the confession. For those who take the time to engage this text, please feel free to ask questions. The confession may prompt many different responses, which I think would be great.
This first section is the introduction. It gives a summary of our circumstance and the context in which American Churches find themselves. It also demonstrates the need for such confession. Enjoy.


[PRO ECCLESIA (FOR THE CHURCH): AN ECUMENICAL CONFESSION

OUR CIRCUMSTANCE
"You are the salt of the earth...
"You are the light of the world..." (Matthew 5:13a,14a, RSV here and following)
God's purposeful love is the starting point for this world. In Genesis, God creates the world and
humanity, forming the human person in His image and likeness (1:26-27, 2:7, and 2:21-22). God tells humanity to flourish and multiply, and grants us dominion over all creation (1:28). God empowers humanity to cultivate, and fosters the division of labor that enables us to flourish. Even more, through the prophets and His Son, Jesus Christ, God assists, judges, and blesses humanity's cultural efforts. So by creating culture, we participate in God's love.
But centuries of war, poverty, and oppression, along with momentous achievements in the arts, literature, science, technology, politics, economics, and social organization, attest to the truth that culture -- how a people defines and organizes its life -- is always a flawed project in a fallen world. Therefore, God's purposeful love gathers the Church* to be the primary community through which God's redemptive love in Christ is continuously manifested. The Church is to be the "salt of the earth" and "light of the world," called to stand both within, and apart from, culture as a herald of God's Word, presence, and power. This calling leads to a divinely designed relationship, and an unavoidable tension, between Church and culture.
Through the ages there is ample evidence of the Church, as the Body of Christ on earth, accepting and fulfilling its commission to go into all the world to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Humanity has often been blessed by the message and model of grace and truth exhibited by the Church. The Holy Spirit has worked through the Church to embody and advance righteousness, justice, integrity, morality, compassion, and forgiveness, and to remind culture of its dependence upon God's providence, grace, and judgment. However, at times through the ages, the Church has notoriously compromised her faith, witness, and life.
Today many North American churches are dangerously accommodated to excesses of American culture -- secularism, materialism, individualism, consumerism, relativism, and sentimentalism. We, clergy and laity, are complicit. We take responsibility. Too often we lack the faith and courage to be the church that is the Body of Christ in this world. We treat the church as a business to expand, as an organization to promote, as a political lobby, as a therapeutic group. Many clergy and laity now appear apathetic toward the church -- her faith and practice, her message and mission. From years of apathy come the apostasy and atrophy of the church, leading to doctrinal and moral scandals with little communal discipline. Church shopping and schism are taken for granted in American Christianity.
Because of this widespread, cultural accommodation of the churches in the United States, there is an urgent need for confession. When the churches' faith and faithfulness are seriously eroded by cultural compromise, the confession of Gospel truth is compelled by God.
The time has come for American Christians -- clergy and laity, Protestant and Catholic -- to confess Gospel truth about the Church and to reject cultural compromise.]

Waiting

Greetings,

Much of our lives is spent waiting. We might wait for the bus. We wait for each other. We wait in line at the post office. We wait for our food at a restaurant. Sometimes we wait for phones calls or for an important letter. Waiting can be trying, and we do not always like to wait. But what if waiting is precisely the time that we find meaning? R.S. Thomas in his poem "Kneeling" ends his poem with the line, "The meaning is in the waiting." Of course, Thomas is referring to waiting on God and that may be something we all have to do. Waiting on God to act, to answer or to speak is not foreign to us.

This year was the second year that our family had a garden. We bought some seed and a starter kit and we let the kids plant the seeds. We waited and waited for the seeds to grow into plants, and now our back deck is covered with plants. Waiting for that first summer tomato is hard, I will admit, but the more we waited with the kids, checking the garden each morning, the more anticipation grew. I would love to tell you that we have a wonderful crop of tomatoes, but that was not to be this year, there was another group waiting on our tomatoes, and they decided not to wait until the tomatoes were bright red, but preferred the green ones. So we spent our time of waiting starring out the window waiting to run outside to chase off the squirrels that would throw themselves into the tomato bush and make off with a big green tomato. The kids enjoyed the chase and maybe learned a valuable lesson; something like "even if you wait you may not get what you expect."

I am not sure exactly how we extract meaning from this kind of waiting. But the time spent waiting on our crops to grow and the time spent chasing squirrels is not without a certain level of being. That kind of waiting I will take any time. The waiting holds the same level of reality as the thing that we wait for. There is a moment right before we start service at Cherry Point UMC that always passes so quickly but it holds as much excitement as the moment of benediction. As we all gather for worship and the pianist finishes the prelude, there is brief moment of silence right before we all rise for the processional hymn. In that moment we expect that in the next hour God will show up. Maybe waiting for crops to grow and waiting on each other, and waiting in line at the post office is the same, or bares some resemblance to the moment right between the end of the prelude and the beginning of processional--that brief silence before the chaos of worship. We may be expecting big ripe tomatoes, but we may end up chasing the squirrels away.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Mark Woods