An ASSIGNMENT

3. Write a short (two pages or less) philosophy of ministry for the local church.

Genesis 1:26 tells us that God created man within creation to bear His image through reigning over it. Man is given the place of keeping the earth in the same manner that God himself keeps all things, including us. In his book ‘Simply Christian’, N.T. Wright rightly states that mankind is to work, developing creation and making it flourish so that creation can know who it’s Creator is (p 37). Our act of keeping creation is our primary act of bearing witness to who God is. We are to reign in the same manner that God does. In the gospels, Jesus describes our role as being salt and light, bringing preservation and life to the world. Man does not reign over one another in the same way that he does the rest of creation, however his relationships are still to bring wholeness and health to his fellow people. The ultimate result of this task is the glory of the Creator, the Living God through the realization of His Kingdom. Today, this effort by those who acknowledge and affirm God’s reality (i.e. the Church) can get rather complicated due to the Fallen nature of the world in general. Even we who are regenerated, as the Church, feel the tension of the ‘Now and the Not Yet’ character of our existence. How then can we as the local expression of God’s people live in a way that brings wholistic health and flourishing to all living creation within our local community and realm of influence?

To begin with it would be important to maintain awareness of an idea proposed by Stanley Grenz in his book ‘The Social God and the Relational Self’. Here he presents the idea that God’s image is not primarily visible within the individual man but rather within the body of Christ that is many selves in relationship. Counter to our American individualism and emphasis on the autonomous self, the Trinitarian God is made visible within the context of relationship. God made man in his image as male and female. This is not singular but rather plural and relational.

When God designed community life for the nation of Israel in order to develop a people for himself, he instructed them to participate in numerous practices including sacrifices for guilt and sin, feasts and celebrations, acts of justice and hospitality as well as stewardship of the earth. What Israel was doing was remembering. They were remembering who God was, what he had done on their behalf and who he had chosen them to be. In fact the Hebrew word for these feasts could also mean rehearsal. God’s people were rehearsing what they would be doing in eternity- worshipping and enjoying the Creator and reigning with him over the earth.

So today, if we who acknowledge God wish to be a people who are set apart for him, if we wish to bear his image within creation, if we wish to bring life to the world we must find a practice, a way of being with one another that is a remembering, an act of worship and both a just and loving way of reigning or ordering our kingdom.
Remembering is not done well alone. In fact, the apostle Paul seems to imply that knowledge and understanding itself comes out of a communal context. In Colossians 2:2 he writes, “My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding.” N.T. Wright explains in his commentary, “ the term ‘united’ properly governs not only ‘in love’ but also the next phrase which literally means’ and unto all the wealth of conviction of understanding’. In other words, while the process of knitting together the church into a unified body clearly includes the growth of love, it also includes the growth, on the part of the whole community, of that proper understanding of the gospel which leads to the rich blessings of a settled conviction and assurance. Living in a loving and forgiving community will assist growth in understanding, and vice versa, as truth is confirmed in practice and practice enables truth to be seen in action and so to be fully grasped. All of this promotes the encouragement, comfort and strengthening of the heart, regarded metaphorically then as now as the seat of affections and the mainspring of actions.”
Eugene Peterson calls remembering ‘cultivating the fear-of-the-Lord’. Such a fear-of-the-Lord can be lived out in a number of ways. First, as a people we can keep Sabbath. We are to rest from our busy doings in order to give attention to what God has done and is doing. God has done much, initially in his acts of creation and latter in his acts of redemption and renewing. Secondly, we can learn to receive. Receiving inherently calls for the realization that we cannot provide for ourselves what it is that we need. Historically, the practice by which the Church has enacted our dependency and receiving has been through the Eucharist. Peterson puts it this way. ‘We receive Jesus crucified. We remember Jesus’ death and receive his broken body and poured-out blood for the remission of our sins. We hold out our open hands and receive what God does for us in Jesus…We become what we receive. Christ is, we are. In receiving the Eucharist we re-affirm our identity. “Christ in you/me, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27)…. Before we do anything for God, we receive what God in Christ does for us.’
This Sabbath keeping and receiving and attention to the things of God compels us to worship. Dallas Willard calls worship ‘admiration to the point of wonder and delight.’ He says, ‘worship is the single most powerful force in completing and sustaining restoration in the whole person. It naturally arises from thinking rightly of God on the basis of revealed truth confirmed in experience.’ Peterson continues, ‘Creation rhythms get inside us through the act of worship in place and time. Worship is the primary means by which we immerse ourselves in the rhythms and stories of God’s work, get a feel for proper work, creation work. When we go to work it must not be helter-skelter improvisation; it must be congruent with the way God works.’
We remember. We receive. We worship. We re-enact and so proclaim the person and work of our Trinitarian God. The act of publicly proclaiming our personal faith in the work of Christ on our behalf as well as his lordship and life is commonly practiced in baptism. Here we re-enact the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, enter into communion with the Trinity and find a membership or belonging with fellow believers. Finally, as Peterson alludes to, the ways of being together as the people of God necessarily move us to a way of being in our larger communities too. We have a new identity. We are a new creation. We live out of who we are. This is the undivided life, the life of integrity. This outward movement from a center in God reflects Jesus’ own statement that the greatest command is to love God and our neighbor. And what is love? Wendell Berry says, ‘Love is never abstract. It does not adhere to the universe or the planet or the nation or the institution or the profession, but to the singular…to the ‘least of these my brethren’. Love is tangible. It is personal. It is the generous extending of oneself for the life and wellbeing of another. The nature of love is made visible and known through the life of Jesus. This is how we are to be within our relationships within creation and in doing so we bring wholeness and health. This is possible through the power and presence of Christ’s Spirit. We participate with him in the making of all things new. The Jesus way, the way of love is lived out differently everywhere because each person, place and community of living things, each locality, is unique in their being and needs. But in living out such a way, we, the Church, can be the image and presence of God within the world.