Friday, July 20, 2007

Incarnational Ministry

Brother Maynard has an excellent series of posts about the Incarnation.

He argues that the Incarnation is more than simply an antidote to the disease of sin. It is more deeply an expression of who God is and what he was about from the very beginning of creation. If this is true, then it seems to have implications for the Church, the Body of Christ.

For us to be as a higher priority than to do makes many people nervous, but it must be observed that in the sense we're considering, being results in things getting done, but in a much less stressful or labour-intensive way. Perhaps the best approach is not the tool kit version where we show up to fix, but where we show up to be, and to help draw people toward becoming the great healer. To be among not because those poor people need our pity, pathos, profundity, or proximity. But to be among simply because in doing so, we are expressing the God-ness of God to be among. Is it not perhaps in part the desire to show up and fix that we express in our worst moments of colonialism? Hubris, perhaps, to imagine that we've got the answer in our efforts… rather than in simply expressing by our presence the being-ness of God? If we were to, I don't know, "Love God and love our neighbour" or to "Live our faith and share our life," would that not be an expression of God's being that draws people to the fix rather than casting them as objects to be fixed by us, the great handyman now on the scene?

Preach it, Brother.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

1 comment:

jeff franczak said...

"To be, or not to be: that is the question" – Hamlet

(I realize this is a serious post; no disrespect intended.)