Being a Servant Community
This past week I was up in Vancouver Canada interviewing for a position and they had asked me to make a presentation on the following topic: The Future of the Missional Church: Its Potentials in the Multicultural Setting of Canada. One of the things I stated was that the church, either in Canada or the United States, has no future unless it becomes missional.
I really believe that. Though there is a lot to be reflected upon, I offered two implications for the church in Canada -- one was the necessity for the church to be a servant community in culture. We recognize that as church we have become marginalized in the present postmodern culture and no longer have a place of privilege wherein we can speak in such a way that the culture will listen. As with leadership, even though we know we are called to be servants, we still want to maintain some control, so to the church, even though it is marginalized, we still want to be regarded as somehow relevant in society.
That isn't going happen -- at least not in the way we think. I think the only calling that makes sense for us as the sent Christian community is for us to be servant community. This has two aspects to it. One, we serve the world by demonstrating what life is like under the reign of God in order to display another narrative amongst all other narratives in order to enable the narratives of other cultures to see themselves truthfully. Hauerwas stated something like this in talking about how the church is called to serve the world. It is as the church lives out its Story as the sent community, participating with God in the fulfilling of God's mission, that a different Story is revealed that stands in contrast to all other stories. This contrasting Story acts as a mirror to help cultures see the limitations within their stories for being whole communities.
Actually that is the result of our serving. As we enter into dialogue with other cultures, other people, as we live amongst them incarnationally, living in relation to them in the rhythm of our Story, we serve them as our neighbor, loving them, caring for them, encouraging them, being Christ in their midst -- in this way our servanthood actions reveal not only our love for them, but what is also revealed is our Story.
However, we serve in another way as well. Here I am indebted to Ray Anderson. Our service is not primarily to the world, but to God, whose mission is enacted in the world to draw all humanity into a reconciled relationship with God. As we serve God, we place ourselves at God's disposal as a community for God to use us in any way God sees fit to draw humanity, cultures unto himself. We exercise our servanthood by discerning the particular engagements God is calling us to -- to which we respond in engaging people, cultures in these ways -- no matter how far out of our comfort zones these actions are. We do this because we serve the Father and the Father's mission of reconciling the world to himself through Jesus Christ.
Therefore, rather than trying to make something of ourselves as communities of Christ in the world, we are called to be servant communities, just as Jesus came to serve.
I really believe that. Though there is a lot to be reflected upon, I offered two implications for the church in Canada -- one was the necessity for the church to be a servant community in culture. We recognize that as church we have become marginalized in the present postmodern culture and no longer have a place of privilege wherein we can speak in such a way that the culture will listen. As with leadership, even though we know we are called to be servants, we still want to maintain some control, so to the church, even though it is marginalized, we still want to be regarded as somehow relevant in society.
That isn't going happen -- at least not in the way we think. I think the only calling that makes sense for us as the sent Christian community is for us to be servant community. This has two aspects to it. One, we serve the world by demonstrating what life is like under the reign of God in order to display another narrative amongst all other narratives in order to enable the narratives of other cultures to see themselves truthfully. Hauerwas stated something like this in talking about how the church is called to serve the world. It is as the church lives out its Story as the sent community, participating with God in the fulfilling of God's mission, that a different Story is revealed that stands in contrast to all other stories. This contrasting Story acts as a mirror to help cultures see the limitations within their stories for being whole communities.
Actually that is the result of our serving. As we enter into dialogue with other cultures, other people, as we live amongst them incarnationally, living in relation to them in the rhythm of our Story, we serve them as our neighbor, loving them, caring for them, encouraging them, being Christ in their midst -- in this way our servanthood actions reveal not only our love for them, but what is also revealed is our Story.
However, we serve in another way as well. Here I am indebted to Ray Anderson. Our service is not primarily to the world, but to God, whose mission is enacted in the world to draw all humanity into a reconciled relationship with God. As we serve God, we place ourselves at God's disposal as a community for God to use us in any way God sees fit to draw humanity, cultures unto himself. We exercise our servanthood by discerning the particular engagements God is calling us to -- to which we respond in engaging people, cultures in these ways -- no matter how far out of our comfort zones these actions are. We do this because we serve the Father and the Father's mission of reconciling the world to himself through Jesus Christ.
Therefore, rather than trying to make something of ourselves as communities of Christ in the world, we are called to be servant communities, just as Jesus came to serve.
posted by Roland G. Kuhl at 3:39 PM
6 Comments:
"the church, either in Canada or the United States, has no future unless it becomes missional."
I agree!
And working to help facilitate that kind of change is exciting as well.
I wonder if "becoming missional" is it. Instead let met offer, "accepts the missional calling" that Jesus gave us in the first place.
However, I do agree with you and Jerry here. The heart of what you say is true.
awesome stuff Dr. Kuhl. I wish I was a student so I could say that once in awhile. You either sound like an evil villain or a rap star from the 80's. Either way it is fun. I am enjoying this last post. Are you going to go for it if you get accepted. You will be missed. You need to check out this guy I just found, Eugen Gendlin. He is all about the marriage of experience and explicit knowledge. I think the term "tacit knowledge" explains a bit of what he is going for but it is a move beyond postmodernity that I think he wrote about back in '97. He's definitely worth a look at. Missional stuff is really catching wind in its sails and professors/Church elders like you are helping to move us in that direction more and more. But let us know what you are going to do as soon as you find out, unless it is to be a secret for awhile. Much respect!
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sorry for posting twice, it was a mistake, we are all broken vessels...
Thanks for all your comments. Nathan good to hear from you again. In talking with the people up in Vancouver they mentioned that a number of the more prominent Canadian voices speaking to being missional are primarily addressing the American context -- so it seems that there needs to be more engagement in relation to the Canadian scene.
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