[easyazon-image align=”left” asin=”0802868940″ locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Ux1IdhjJL._SL160_.jpg” width=”107″]Page 2: Created and Led by the Spirit
Created and Led by the Spirit is equal parts poetry and practical observation. Susan Tjornehoj, who has served at the Synod level and nurtured missional church plants, paints this image for us, “In this borderless, God-created world, the identity of the missional community is as one of the strangers. The word “stranger” appears sixty-five times in Scripture. In Matthew 25, Jesus becomes the stranger: ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me’ (Matt. 25:35)… Ephesians describes the power of this stranger, Christ Jesus, to form and shape a new community: those who were once Gentiles, aliens, and strangers are made citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Eph. 2:11-22)” (98). Tjornehoj then relates the history of five congregations in the Twin Cities, how they have been separated, sometimes from their community, from each other, or perhaps even divided internally. Now, each is beginning a process to seek Spirit’s guidance as they remember and reclaim their primary missional heritage and strive to expand their tent to include all (or at least more of) God’s people.
Two chapters, Church Emerging and Postbureaucratic Churches, provide helpful spiritual images for missional church organization within a particular spiritual community or among neighboring churches. In the first, Daniel Anderson shares his research on emerging ELCA churches finding they emphasize, “The incarnational approach to context, the indigenous nature of ministry and leadership, and the transcultural relationship with the gospel…” (133). Based on his observations, Anderson then proposes an addition to the ancient formula lex orandi, lex credendi (often translated: worship shapes faith, faith shapes worship) as a test of the missional nature of a particular congregation. He writes, “I propose lex orandi, lex credendi, lex movendi (the law of moving) as an expression of missional perspective. Worship and faith are connected in reciprocal relationships with the movement of God and the church in the world. Movendi is a form of the Latin word moveo… ‘to move or set in motion’… In a reflexive form is can mean ‘to dance’. We move with God, with one another, and with the other for the sake of God’s mission in the world. It is our worship and faith that shape the church as we go into the world, even as our going shapes our worship and faith” (143). Simply put, the extent to which any established or emerging community is missional will be reflected in its liturgy and confession.
Todd Hobart’s contribution, Postbureaucratic Churches, examines four churches (or, more accurately in some cases, collections of communities) and how they are organized internally and how they cooperate with neighboring communities. Hobart finds two key Trinitarian principles in the subjects’ nonhierarchical and network-like organizational models: interdependence and openness. Interdependence can be understood thusly, “In the perichoretic relationships between the persons of the Trinity, the tensions between what is mine and what is not mine melt away through the reciprocal interiority of the divine persons.” In a missional community application then, “One staff member may take on the responsibility of completing a task, but ultimate accountability for that task, as well as for the good of the congregation, would lie with the group as a whole” (200). Regarding the quality of openness, Hobart observes these communities exhibited:
“Openness to nontraditional leaders, change, influence from those within the organization, and the risk that is inherent in that openness” (201).
In conclusion, missional church teams may find Created and Led by the Spirit a helpful resource as they seek to renew or expand the theological foundations for their reflections and prayer.
C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of a number of books, including most recently How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church (Brazos Press, 2019). Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com
 Reading for the Common Good From ERB Editor Christopher Smith "This book will inspire, motivate and challenge anyone who cares a whit about the written word, the world of ideas, the shape of our communities and the life of the church." -Karen Swallow Prior Enter your email below to sign up for our weekly newsletter & download your FREE copy of this ebook! |
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