What does it mean to be the Church today?

(notes based on Prof Gordon T. Smith’s lecture 12 

1.  The church is a people (not a project)

• You cannot have the church without the ascended Christ
• Very easy for the church to be a religious club without a real time encounter with Christ. At the same time, can we experience Christ without the church? No – it is through the church.
• Faith has a fundamentally communal character, thus we speak of a social holiness
• We should be wearied of the church as a project to fix – they are distinctly a community of faith
• The spirit of God sustains the church – but how is it sustained?
• How does the Spirit of God sustain the church?
• It is through word and sacrament
• Mutuality – the deep mutuality becomes the forum/place where God’s gracious spirit is at work. Church is the fellowship of the spirit. We participate in each other’s lives (koinonia)

2. The church is a place of encounter and communion with Christ
3 alternatives of meeting Jesus

1. We are not transformed with the encounter of the Bible – do not transform the scriptures with the One who is revealed through the word. What transforms us is not ultimately the Bible but the risen Christ.
2. We are not transformed with an encounter of religious experience – don’t assume raised emotional quotient is sign of risen Christ
3. It is not ultimately an encounter with one another. Jesus Christ is described as head of church in whom we have union. We are living people of God insofar as we are in communion with the living head

3. The church as people and place of encounter/communion with Christ

• The church needs to incarnate its witness
• We are a sign to the kingdom
• Encounter with nature, serving homeless, reading good book is ‘transformation’. But the pivot is being a person of prayer. So if not praying, the other good things are just secular.
• Similarly, if the sermon is not in the context of liturgy, which is the pivot, then it is just another religious club activity
• Practices to consider:
• Proclamation of the gospel: preaching and teaching of scriptures – consider how this is shaped in the postmodern context. Preaching is respecting nature of text – don’t preach poetry unless you can read poetry. Intent in preaching is to be clear/concise, not for them to like me. Good preaching is about the ordering of affections (what do you long for… and allow scripture to sustain our longings). Ultimately an encounter with Jesus not with the text. The sermon is within the context of the liturgy and should not be taken out of its context. 
• Read fine genre writings to understand the nature. Mary Oliver for poetry, and Alice Munro for narrative
• Preaching leads the process by which we are enabled to live by the reign of Christ. We are able to live out the prayer – thou will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. How is this done? Through repentance – our primary orientation is not the church but about the kingdom. View pastoral prayer as articulating our deep longings for the world
• We are to love one another – begins with radical hospitality, welcome one another in the Lord. And then it is evident in our participation of each other, listening to one another, serve one another
• The church is missional and orientation is to a empowered service for the world in the world. We’re not asking people to serve while they come to our midst but to go out and serve together holistically.

 Consider the RCIA – Rite for Christian Initiation for Adults
go to a RC parish and ask them to explain the RCIA. Their process is as follows

1. Sept – Advent, start in Sept – invited to be an inquirer, to ask questions.  Once a week, all inquirers are invited to the RC church to ask questions. The agenda is set by the inquirers’ questions
2. Advent – you are now a catecumen. You are instructed in the matters of faith, history, etc. There are 2 tracks: knowledge and behavior/ethics. Process where church is midwifing the birth of a new child in Christ. If after this time you want to be baptized you enter next stage
3. Lent – in this period you go through intentional formation/evaluation of faith and practices for baptism and gets baptized on Easter vigil
4. Mystagogy (one week)

• This whole process lasts around 9 months
• You have a sponsor that journeys with you through this process
• The genius is that nobody is asked to go to the next step unless they want to go to next step
• This is the Lord’s agenda, not ours – so provide the context for this
• Conversion is being mediated liturgically in the church