Vision Enhanced: Change the Posture of the Church

I am compelled to change the posture of the Church 

to reflect God's power to overcome barriers and isolation

with the whole Gospel.

This could easily have made for 3 separate entries!  The problem was in separating the phrases, which, it turns out, must be linked together.  Here, we're getting to the heart of things.  I'll actually work through it in reverse.

Numerous scholars and writers have critiqued the Church's tendency to "slice and dice" the Gospel into pieces that are easier to digest-- or at least that work well for them.  Such picking and choosing causes myopia and distortion.  Some simple examples can be seen at both ends of the spectrum of faith vs. works, social justice vs. personal piety, being 'relevant' vs. living separated from culture.  Most often, the challenge of the Gospel is not to opt for one or the other, but to faithfully tackle both.  (For more on the "both/ and" of the holistic Gospel, see this piece I wrote about a year ago.)

Almost any church I work with (and almost any day in my personal life, for that matter) needs to compensate for its natural gravitation away from the whole shebang of the Good News.  Because without it, the Church cannot live into the promise of Ephesians 2:14-16.  "For Jesus himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility... His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility."

This is one of the chief reasons Urban Mosaic exists.  I look around the city and I see plenty of well-meaning Christians.  Yet, I see them working in isolation, in fear, in mistrust, surrounded by dividing walls.  I see churches isolated from other churches and from their neighbors.  Their own members are divided by language, age, and economic class.  This is not the whole Gospel!  Preaching on Sundays, or effective outreach, or great small groups, or powerful prayer ministry does not make up for falling short of the full expression of that new humanity that Jesus created.

Therefore the posture of the Church must change.  It must be humble.  Sacrificial.  Listening.  Aware.  Ready to be broken and shared among the hurting people of this city and this world.  Freed of its hostility.  Prepared as an earthen vessel, fragile yet fill-able.

Let's be practical for a moment: it happens in small steps.  Don't take me as a wild revolutionary-- I appreciate that this is no quick fix.  It is beyond difficult to live into God's desire for reconciliation.  What we as a team ask, encourage, coach and model is a life that kneels, knocks, seeks, and asks for the way forward.  Not charging ahead alone, but sitting at the table with others with whom we are called to journey.  Even when it's uncomfortable.  Even when they're being silly or petty or downright difficult.  That's what we believe Jesus did.  That's what he seemed to dream for his Church.

His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

Local Urban Realities

Normally, this time of year would take me into homes and community centers in Latin America's slums during the Global Urban Trek.  During this InterVarsity program that I participated in, led, and directed over the course of six summers, we challenged college students to consider God's call to live and minister among the world's rapidly growing urban poor population.  As part of their orientation, a variety of speakers and activities primed the students for six weeks in marginalized communities.  One of the talks we offered year after year was called "Global Urban Realities", and it was a barrage of statistics and studies on the state of the world's poorest cities.  Many students ate up this feast of facts-- it was something tangible and solid amid a coming flood of unknowns for their summer experience.

That 'Global Urban Realities' talk came to my mind this week as I read some sobering police reports on our neighborhood.  Within 5 blocks of our apartment, six men have been shot in less than six weeks, in three separate incidents.  Three of them were killed, and another is still in critical condition.  You see, I don't often get the hard data on the neighborhood.  Most of my experience is, well, just what I experience.  I experience wonderful refugee ladies at the farmer's market, selling swiss chard.  I see my neighbor "R" coming home late, juggling 3 jobs, a 7-month-old daughter, and a husband recovering from a hand injury.  I watch with amusement as Buddhist monks from a local monastery stop at the corner market.  Lately I resent the amount of TV and party noise on some nights, amplified by close alleys and open windows.  I smell the drugs smoked on either side of our house.  I shake the hand of a pastor at a storefront church.  I recognize the psychotic woman at our bus stop from a downtown ministry program.  I wonder what happened to our former neighbor, who was evicted after she simply disappeared and stopped paying rent.  I grin at seeing dogs in the park and flowers in yards.  I notice a woman lives with her baby in someone's 1-car garage a few doors down.

When I list it all like that, it's feels far more bleak, because taken one at a time, one fact, one observation, one relationship at a time, it's just life.  It's just the combined lives of people trying to make a living.  I don't write this to prove anything about our neighborhood or to promote stereotypes about it.  That is not my aim at all.  I generally think that City Heights is not nearly as rough as its reputation would indicate.  However, those police visits to our block did snap me back to the reality that all is not fine.  Things are not as they should be.  Do I want to do something about it?  Sure!  Did my mind immediately rush to community watch groups and town meetings?  You bet!  

Yet, I want to pause and sit for a time with this thought, penned by a current Trek student spending the summer in Manila:

How often do we go into a broken situation trying to “fix” things, bring “justice,” “save” people, when truly, we don’t have the human capacity to make things right? Without God’s love, our efforts mean nothing. It is God’s love that restores, heals, and saves lives. And “fixing” and “bringing justice” was never our primary calling. Our first call was to love God with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.


(Feel free to read more and follow their experiences on the Trek blog.)