The Path God Took in Jesus Christ
John Daugherty – Pinnacle Associate
The past several months have created for many churches and church leaders a journey most had not anticipated. We’re hearing, “seminary didn’t prepare me for this” a lot. Churches are having to figure out how to be media churches, many of which were reticent at best to “go that way.”
We, as Christ followers, find ourselves on a different journey, a path of wandering, which is not the same as being lost. Perhaps we’re re-discovering ways of being faithful more reflective of the earliest beginnings of the movement of transforming lives by bearing the good news of Jesus and his life of love and compassion. Jesus was very much aligned with the vision of the prophets and less aligned with the institution of Judaism; more closely focused on people and relationships and less with hierarchy and ritual.
As today’s church is shifting and re-shaping to be effective in these days of challenge from a world-wide pandemic and amid unsettled politics with all the rancor and divisiveness, might we need to recapture Jesus’ prophetic vision? Jesus’ ministry was to preach the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven; to seek and to save the lost; to confront the works of evil and injustice; and to fulfill the law and the prophets. Jesus called his followers to be disciples, to be learners and to emulate their teacher, the Christ. “This is the ongoing call of God’s church; to discern how to be the best expression of the body of Christ we possibly can be in the world in which we currently live.” (ReShape: Emerging Church Practice in a Volatile World, Mark Tidsworth)
How do we respond? Who seemed to be the focus of concern for the prophets and for Jesus? For many in the church there is a since of mourning for that which seems to be no more. We found comfort in the expected – the rituals, the norms of gathering, the things we anticipated not changing but have changed. When will we get back together again? While important functions of the church are worship and fellowship, congregational care and maintaining of facilities, perhaps we are finding again the greater need for serving our communities, of ministering to those most effected by the turmoil of these days.
The prophet Amos expressed God’s concern in Amos 5:21-24 (from the Message) “I can’t stand your religious meetings. I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religious projects your pretentious slogans and goals. I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relationship and image making. I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music...Do you know what I want? I want justice – oceans of it. I want fairness – rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all I want.”
How do we re-shape to be more in line with Jesus and the prophets? Perhaps we need to rediscover for whom Jesus was most concerned, i.e. from Matthew 25 – the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the exposed and unprotected, the sick and the oppressed. As church leaders our most pressing job is to prepare disciples, Jesus-followers to do what Jesus did. He was among the people, even on feast days at the Temple in Jerusalem Jesus would be found in the courtyards among the “least” who were not, or could not be, involved with the rituals and the sacrifices. He attended to those who were less than by being imperfect of body and status. He confronted his own among the Pharisees who were more interested in the tiniest letter of the law, and forgot the needs of their people.
While many bemoan the challenges of our times, it may well be we are discovering our greatest opportunity to be the Body of Christ among our neighbors by moving beyond our buildings and rituals and being the love of Jesus to those in most need of that love. The ReShape Purpose Statement: “ReShape is a guided process for capturing and integrating the innovation and adaptation resulting from volatile life experiences, transforming churches into greater expressions of the body of Christ.” This is the challenge for today’s church; this is the opportunity we have before us. We at Pinnacle Leadership Associates invite you to join us in this process.