Vol 1:33 Called to do Life Together

Roxburgh and Boren state that the second practice in the church demonstrating that they are sign, foretaste, and instrument of God’s present and coming reign is the practice of love (p. 110).
They state that this practice “speaks to the ways a group of people commit to do life together” (p. 110).

As I reflect on this practice of love, I realize that this is one of the more difficult things for us to do in the contemporary church – most of what we do is committing to spend some time together on Sunday mornings or some other evening – be it a small group or ministry setting. But, for us to commit ourselves to one another to do life together – that seems outside of our realm of what is possible.

Years ago I minored in sociology during my university days and I remember the sociologist Weber talking about the differences between Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft. Gesellschaft, if I remember correctly, has do with gathering, while Gemeinschaft has to do with community. The first is just a gathering of people for some purpose, but it does not involve a strong commitment. Gemeinschaft, on the other hand, is the kind of gathering of people in which there is a strong commitment to one another over a period of time.

In the USA and Canada we have become comfortable in church life with Gesellschaft – merely gathering together with others for worship, ministry, etc., but when we are done after an hour or two, we are free to head home. We may share prayer needs, even what is going on in our lives, but we do not need to engage one another deeply. But Gemeinschaft requires a whole different paradigm of how we are engaged and connected to one another.

Roxburgh and Boren express, “the life of the missional church cannot be done by a conglomeration of individualists who see each other only at formal meetings [Gesellschaft]. Being missional means that we do life together in a way that marks us as distinct from the surrounding culture [Gemeinschaft]” (p. 110). This commitment to life together is something we need to commit to just as we commit our lives to Jesus Christ. It requires the same kind of repentance, the same kind of discipleship, in order for us to live missionally as the people of God in the world. It is a committing of ourselves to one another in community, for “in community we learn to love one another, and through the journey of learning to love we are formed and shaped by God through the others in a group” (p. 110).

There are those who are seeking to practice such a life of committed community, often described as the new monasticism, along with their Rules of Life (not so much rules, but a set of practices which name how they seek to do life together). It is probably worth looking at such communities and Rules of Life in order to discover the depth of the commitment required to practice love for one another.

I believe this is probably a huge stumbling block in our becoming missional communities – are we willing to give up our individualism, our comforts, our privacy, in order to share life together with others? Are we willing to share our possessions, share meals and home together, sharing in responsibilities? It is not something we can do on our own – for that would put us on the road to becoming coercive communities – no, it, like our following after Jesus, requires the Holy Spirit to take hold of our lives and lead us. Are we willing to consider being the missional people of God, but exploring how we might live in community, in Gemeinschaft together. I know I need to struggle with this.

Vol 1:17 Being Missional in Preaching: Hearing the Voice of the Spirit in Our Midst

Missional leading that is concerned with cultivating missional awareness is also concerned with the congregation discerning the leading of the Spirit. What is the Spirit doing amongst us? What is the Spirit doing in the community into which we are being sent? How are we being equipped and empowered by the Spirit to participate in God’s mission in our ministry settings? These are key questions – for which I see preaching playing an important role in cultivating a congregation to become more deeply sensitive to the Spirit’s leading.

A former colleague of mine at Northern Seminary, Michael J. Quicke, taught a course entitled Leadership Through Preaching, which ended up becoming a book – 360 Degree Leadership, in which he argues that preaching is key to leading that brings about transformation. In addition, I believe that the kind of preaching that is key is one that involves the congregation in discerning together where God is leading us as a church to participate with God in God’s mission.

In a previous column I mentioned that leadership is about discerning and articulating the vision the Spirit of God is casting within a church community, seeing the people themselves as gifts the Spirit bestows to the community because it is their gifts and passions that give us a clue of how God is shaping us to be participants in God’s mission.

Since Easter I have been exploring a different approach to preaching – I even discovered it has a name – interactive preaching – though little is written about it. Basically, it is about engendering a conversation on Sunday morning so that we encounter God’s Word in a multi-voiced way, rather than God’s Word being expressed as a monologue – i.e., my being the sole voice in preaching.

It involves retraining me as well as the congregation, because preaching for centuries has been the primary profession of the clergy – this is how I was trained in seminary. But if we take seriously the priesthood of all believers (which the Reformation expressed, but did little practically to bring it about) then somehow what God is saying to us, how we understand Scripture, how we hear the Spirit opening us to Scripture, is to be a communal activity, rather than an activity limited to clergy.

This is still very new to me and I am making mistakes as I am learning to be more open to hear what the Spirit is saying to us through the Word of God. I also believe that we as a community are beginning to learn to engage Scripture, express insights that the Spirit brings in ways that are fresh and particularly relevant. Over the centuries preaching has involved one speaking and the rest listening, but interactive preaching is an attempt for each one of us in the community to take on the calling of being open to Jesus, being open to the Spirit, so that together we might be led in being sent out to participate with God in God’s redemptive mission. Mission and ministry are corporate activities, so why not preaching as well?

This was the way the early Anabaptists engaged Scripture in worship – together; this seems to be what Paul was getting at in 1 Corinthians 14 in which each one brings something with them to share in their gatherings, for some to prophecy, and others to speak in tongues and others yet to interpret – it involves the church being the Body of Christ – building up one another, being responsible for discipling one another. It involves a whole different attitude in how we come to worship on Sundays – rather than being about “being ministered to by the Word,” we instead having spent time in Scripture, come prepared to engage others, share insights in hearing corporately what the Spirit of God is saying to us, so that we might be obedient as a community to where and how we are being sent by God.

It seems I am rambling a bit – but I am trying to get my mind and life more around what it means for a community to “preach” the Word to one another in an interactive way. I believe as we develop facility with this approach to preaching, the community I serve will become more deeply engaged in God’s Story and Vision (Scripture) and be continually transformed as a community that is sign, foretaste, and instrument of God’s present and coming reign. May we be open to hearing and expressing God’s word as a multi-voice community.

Next week: Being missional in preaching – Some ways I am trying to be interactive