Transformation: Going To The Roots
This article discusses 6 current church paradigms that need to be challenged and changed. Great insight, but again, how do we do it. I think it would be interesting to discuss the 6 paradigms one by one.
The church is a personal sanctuary, a haven from the world, dedicated to the pursuit of a deeply inward and solitary religious experience for its members. Withdrawing from the turmoil and struggle of daily life, members are refreshed and renewed by their private interaction with God. The church functions as a place for individual religious experience and growth.
Versus
The church is ecclesia — a public assembly — to which God is calling all peoples to be transformed into the people of God. As sign, foretaste, and instrument of the promised reign of God, the church is to proclaim and embody the ultimate destiny of all humanity in God’s perfect society of joy and generosity, hope and vision, love and compassion, peace and justice.
I believe that one way we change this is to work to make our churches less homogenous. I was just reading in Leviticus 1-2 about the temple sacrifices. God makes specific room for those with different economic status to approach him with their offerings and sacrifices, in a community setting. The cattle, the sheep or goat, the dove and then, for the poorest in the community, some dough. All, from the richest to the poorest, gather to make their offerings. Interestingly, when the sacrificial rules are laid out, God refers to the poorest community members in a way that is unique. To those bringing their cattle, flocks and birds, He refers to them as people. When the poorest bring the offering of flour, God refers to that person as “nefesh”, a soul. Many of the Jewish scholars believe that this unique designation is to point out the fact that this person’s offering is so precious to God, it as if he is truly sacrificing his own being. That lump of dough is probaby his food for the day. God cares for those who are deprived, weak and alone. He knows that their sacrifice is truly a sacrifice.
Perhaps, if our churches were less homogenous, it would help to push us out of our comfy chairs. Perhaps, if every Sunday we watched the poor offer up their “food for the day” to God, we would be less inclined to stay within the 4 walls of the church. Perhaps, if we could see-even a little-outside of our own socio-economic classes, we would feel a little less Holy and a lot more humble.
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