Church: No Longer an Institution, But a Movement!

You have probably heard of Brian D. McLaren, especially if you follow Richard Rohr’s postings.  I had not. But as I started to read more of his writings and consider his ideas as a resource for envisioning a renewed, inclusive, vibrant Church, I found many (although not all) of his overall concepts intriguing and invigorating.

Consider this:

Christian faith for me is no longer a static location but a great spiritual journey. And that changes everything.

And this:

Jesus was short on sermons, long on conversations; short on answers, long on questions; short on abstraction and propositions, long on stories and parables; short on telling you what to think, long on challenging you to think for yourself.

Or this:

It's not about the church meeting your needs; it's about joining the mission of God's people to meet the world's needs.

And take a look at this in respect to the orthodoxy the Church tries to foist upon us:

We must never underestimate our power to be wrong when talking about God, when thinking about God, when imagining God, whether in prose or in poetry. A generous orthodoxy, in contrast to the tense, narrow, or controlling orthodoxies of so much of Christian history, doesn't take itself too seriously. It is humble. It doesn't claim too much. It admits it walks with a limp.

(I especially love a new version of the Church admitting “it walks with a limp!”)

And then there are these – to encourage us in our own mission for equality of all genders in leadership and ministry in our Church:

 When any sector of the Church stops learning, God simply overflows the structures that are in the way and works outside them with those willing to learn.

 We need not a new set of beliefs, but a new way of believing, not simply new answers to the same old questions, but a new set of questions.

 Jesus doesn’t dominate the other, avoid the other, colonize the other, intimidate the other, demonize the other, or marginalize the other. He incarnates into the other, joins the other in solidarity, protects the other, listens to the other, serves the other, even lays down his life for the other. 

(Makes you proud, for once, to see yourself as “the other” by the Church!)

But in the end: What do we yearn for? Where will we start?  Maybe simply by creating this:

The scarily brilliant Romantic poet and visionary William Blake dared to say what many of us have perhaps thought but kept to ourselves: “A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there’s more conversation.”

Sounds like a good start to me!