Section 22. Row 2. Seat 8. That is where I will be planted on Monday as the Rangers open the season against the Boston Red Sox at the Palace in Dallas. A huge, extra special "Thank You" to Jim White for his generosity in sharing these tickets with Allan and me.
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One of the affects of the postmodern shift in our culture is the inherent call for the church to return to its roots of identity in living out the mission of Jesus. Astute analysts of the church in North America today decry how modernism's affect was to remake church not in the mission of Jesus but in the equivalent form of a mall where the felt needs of every person were satisfied. The product of modernism has been to gauge "successful" churches on the basis of building, budgets and bodies in the pew. But the missional call summons churches back to the very roots of the first church by living as participants in the advancing reign of God in the world.
The call of Jesus on our lives is not just to bless with eternity in the distant future, which leads to "the gospel of sin management," as Dallas Willard calls it. No, the call of Jesus is a call to participation in what God is doing in the world today. To be sensitive to the activity of God in the world and to join God in advancing the reign of God's kingdom. To see ourselves within the church not as consumers of religion, but as servants of the King. To, as Micah said, "act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6.8).
Last night, I finished off a book given me by Terry and Marty Johnson for my birthday that addressed this reality as clearly as any book I've read. Stormfront: The Good News of God was written by four different authors as part of the Gospel and our Culture Series. Here are some excerpts.
"Followers of Christ do not interpret their covenantal relationship with God through external statutes and ordinances but through the person of Jesus Christ. Their obedience to God is not accomplished through dutiful human achievement, but it is offered in faithful relationship with Jesus Christ. This relationship is made visible to the world as Christ's disciples participate in the community of those who would follow Jesus. The new creation, the new way of life in God's kingdom, is already a reality within the life of the community of Jesus' disciples. And as this community assumes the yoke of Jesus -- the promise and the summons of his way of life -- it participates in the blessedness of a covenant relationship with God. Living within this relationship, watching for and welcoming the signs of God's reign that it sees in its own life, the community discovers its true purpose: to participate in God's redemptive mission in the world" (111).
"The church proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ by offering a faithful performance of the gospel. Life within God's new social order issues in behavior which is in agreement with God's will -- the rightness of life before God. The criteria for such behavior is not the performance of miracles or the dutiful adherence to rules, but the love of God and of neighbor (Matthew 22.34-40). Thus the church does not only care about how it thinks or believes, but also how it lives, day-to-day...Practicing a way of life goes to the roots of our lives as human beings; the disciple community seeks to practice a way of life that is grounded in God as source, motivation and authority. It finds its righteousness -- the righteousness that satisfies -- only in receiving, celebrating, and manifesting the love, mercy and forgiveness of God" (123).
