church=risky, experimental living

Many people get easily confused about what ‘church’ is. They think it’s a building, or a religious institution, or a club for people who “enjoy that kind of thing”. It may indeed need structure, organisation and devotees. But it isn’t about them. ‘Church’, rather, is the name of a public space for risky, experimental living – for doing crazy stuff like forgiving others, offering hospitality to oddballs, sharing what we have in common and with others, learning how to live justly, and re-telling key stories of redemption and change. I’m paraphrasing some key elements from the gospels here. The word ekklesia refers to this kind of ‘zone of action’. ( Simon Barrow )

Comments

[Passerby]

"Many people get easily confused about what ‘church’ is"

It takes some restraint not to reply sarcastically to someone offering the definitive ontology of "church" for the benefit of the easily-confused many.

I place myself squarely among those whose notion of church diverges from the one offered above. As such I feel as though I'm expected to swallow that curious ontology whole and await further pearls.

The church is a public space for risky. experimental living, we're told.

On the other hand, per a very recent post, the church needs to speak wisdom into .... etc, etc.

The public space needs to speak wisdom? Huh?

I hear preachers on the TV and radio using language such as: "You must believe God for a miracle." This just one example of systematically using various constructions encountered nowhere else, as far as I know, than in their religious enclave.

Use the weird grammar and mark yourself and show yourself as one of us, they seem to me to say.

Or fail to.

Religion is a weird subject. Weird language will presumably often be the only way to proceed. But whatever the radio preacher meant by "believe God for a miracle," I suspect it was not one of those notions in the face of which which conventional is useless.

Did Jesus abandon the grammar of his community's language to make his points? I don't know enough about the several related areas of scholarship to form an opinion.

I encourage you to speak to the unwashed (like me, for instance) in unwashed language, avoiding the tribal idioms and tricky bits. This for two reasons. First, people have to guess what the hell you're talking about and it seems at least as likely as not that they'll guess wrong. Secondly, people might be attracted to the semi-secret code language and approach for that reason. Indeed they might sign up and stick around for that reason.

That, in my opinion, is likely to be a travesty whenever it happens.

[ron cole]

Passerby...you're right on man.Jesus abandoned the languge of the inner circle of the religious pharisees. He immersed himself into the culture, the language and the people...he moved into the neighborhood so to speak. I think to often we try to do the same thing but end up creating another clicky tribe with it's own language that becomes totally foreign from it's surroundings.I think when I spoke of in the previous post around the church speaking wisdom...it was the wisdom of heady knowledge and words, it was more the simplicity of...serving, justice, greed, sharing...the wild radical scandalous economy of the Kingdom talked about in his crazy parables. An economy that is upside down to the economy of greed and consumerism.

And further more, if I'm guilty of tribal language, forgive me. Thanks for the visit, and for opening up the conversation.