So this is 2009?!

My first contribution for the year and I find myself wondering how to go about kicking off another 12 month journey.

Firstly I guess I need to say that while breaking things into bite size chunks – days, months, and years - allows us to keep life in some kind of perspective, it is a very limiting way of viewing things and perhaps we need to change our perspective? There always seems to be a goal to reach or a line to be crossed and of course this is true. However, for me these artificial lines are all about the ‘doing’ part of our lives and has very little to do with our BEING. For us to nurture a more ontological (go on, look it up) way of viewing life then we have to look beyond human chronology. That’s two ‘ology’s’ in one paragraph! See what a slower lifestyle can do for you?

The church also is ruled by days, months and years; but there is more to it than that. Or at least there should be. John Howard Yoder once said: ‘The work of Jesus was not a new set of ideals or principles for reforming or even revolutionising society, but the establishment of a new community, a people that embody forgiveness, sharing and self sacrificing love in its ritual and discipline. In that sense, the visible church is not to be the bearer of Christ’s message; but to be the message.’

Humankind is designed for worship. We love on a human level and yet regularly sense that there must be more; something, higher, wider, deeper and stronger that we sense and often yearn for, even occasionally stumbling across a clue. Lots of people boast that they are not religious. We are all religious. We all worship something. It can be power, possessions, money, popularity, people, organisations, or failing any of those, it can be the person we look at every morning in the mirror.

As boundaries increasingly contract, the church is one that is encouraged to expand. Against the odds and a growing culture of fear, the church is ordered to love foolishly and extravagantly. As the world continually defines our enemies for us the church is called to love them!

We enter a New Year that is one of the most unknown of modern times. The economic downturn will continue to bite and many things previously considered safe as the bank, are now feeling the creak of unstable foundations, including those banks! That which was sure is no longer assured and the unthinkable becomes possible.

I ask myself, ‘from where will hope come this year?’ That which is breaking down is too focused on survival to be of any use. Politicians now seem to have a haunted look in their eyes as their ‘spin’ is now spinning out of control. Church leaders moralising from ivory towers are at best ignored and at worst scoffed at as being out of touch and irrelevant. We of course have people who are convinced that this is the ‘real’ world and can give a perfectly rational explanation of our demise, and why there can be no God, to anyone who cares to listen. I have a hunch that their audience is rapidly shrinking?

So what is left? Maybe it will come down to local groups of people who are foolishly committed to each other, recklessly committed to love and serve others and deeply committed to growing closer and deeper in relationship with God. I think they call that a local church congregation. A faith community that will not be diverted by the colour of the flowers, a crying baby, hymns, choruses, chants or silence, a poor performance by the preacher or the brand of coffee. I’ll sign on again for that!

Cheers - John