I came across this today on Paul Fromont (Prodigal Kiwi) he quotes from John Drane in his recent reading.(his blog 16th March -John Drane - Community Mystery and the Future of the Church) It seems to resonate with my own processing and poins in some other way to the character task I mentioned yesterday.
We need to rediscover how the church can be a place of community, nurture, and personal growth…In a fragmented society people are looking for a place to belong, a place of safety, a place where we can be empowered rather than stifled, a place where we can be open with others, acknowledging our needs and inadequacies with an expectation of support rather than a fear of condemnation, and finding acceptance for who we are rather than having to conform to images of who other people think we should be…This will inevitably be challenging – more for some than others – because it requires us to value one another as persons made in God’s image, regardless of class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality or other characteristics that may appear to divide us. This seems to be a particularly problematic area for the church,
And further,
Finally, we need to rediscover church as a focus for witness and service. Christians love to correct other people. But an appropriate prophetic attitude for a renewed and faithful church will begin with the recognition that we can only effectively challenge others to follow the way of Christ if we are continually hearing God’s voice for ourselves, and allowing our own understandings to be changed in the process. We have something to share with others not because we are different, but because we are no different, and we can become credible witnesses not as we condemn others and dismiss what we regard as their inadequate spiritualities, but as we constantly listen to the gospel and appropriate its challenge in our own lives…. ‘God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in that world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing the things that are…(1 Cor. 1:27-28). In our struggle to find new ways of being church in a context of rapid cultural change, that is perhaps the best news of all, and the most truly empowering message for the postmodern age…” (pp. 98-100)
