Living Stones don't stay in the walls
I really enjoyed this insight in Appendix 1 of Bill Jackson's history of the Vineyard, The Quest for the Radical Middle, which is a reprint from the Vineyard's magazine Cutting Edge Fall 1999 issue containing excerpts from Todd Hunter's address to the AVC USA after John Wimber died. There are a few paragraphs in the middle that jumped out at me. He is talking about building the 21st century church.
On Being a Missional Church
What I mean to say here is that we’re not just “a people.” We’re a people for the sake of the world. I love the phrase that George Hunsberger and others use, that we are a sent people. Unfortunately, we have a tendency as evangelicals to understand what we are saved from, and less of an understanding of what we’re saved for.
In God’s design, the Church exists for God’s mission in the world. God is himself missional. The Trinity is well understood in its calling and sending activities. The Church understands its missional purpose by observing and imitating the love of God for the world.
So, then, the church I would build would take seriously “equipping the saints” for meaningful ministry. In my judgment, John Wesley is a great example of leading a godly, missional people. He so perfectly blended community and mission. He had very laid-out methods for classes and societies where people learned to be disciples. But the early Methodists are also famous for their circuit riding, for their preaching, for their sending. They are a beautiful example of what it’s like to be “living stones” (I Peter 1:4-5), as Peter calls Christians.
However, I sometimes find in pastors that, psychologically, we really don’t like leading living stones, because they can be trouble. You’re trying to build a wall, and “the stones” are hard to control. You put a stone in, but because it’s living it has its own mind and is moving around in the neat, ideal little wall you are trying to build.
The problem, my friends, is that the alternative is dead stones. You can control them. But there’s no life of the Spirit there. Wesley found a way to loose these living stones, making them increasingly mature Christians, so that they became a “sent” community living winsomely and powerfully in the public arena. Many of them actually became the circuit riding preachers because Wesley knew that they were the ones who had the intuition necessary to reach their people.
On Being a Missional Church
What I mean to say here is that we’re not just “a people.” We’re a people for the sake of the world. I love the phrase that George Hunsberger and others use, that we are a sent people. Unfortunately, we have a tendency as evangelicals to understand what we are saved from, and less of an understanding of what we’re saved for.
In God’s design, the Church exists for God’s mission in the world. God is himself missional. The Trinity is well understood in its calling and sending activities. The Church understands its missional purpose by observing and imitating the love of God for the world.
So, then, the church I would build would take seriously “equipping the saints” for meaningful ministry. In my judgment, John Wesley is a great example of leading a godly, missional people. He so perfectly blended community and mission. He had very laid-out methods for classes and societies where people learned to be disciples. But the early Methodists are also famous for their circuit riding, for their preaching, for their sending. They are a beautiful example of what it’s like to be “living stones” (I Peter 1:4-5), as Peter calls Christians.
However, I sometimes find in pastors that, psychologically, we really don’t like leading living stones, because they can be trouble. You’re trying to build a wall, and “the stones” are hard to control. You put a stone in, but because it’s living it has its own mind and is moving around in the neat, ideal little wall you are trying to build.
The problem, my friends, is that the alternative is dead stones. You can control them. But there’s no life of the Spirit there. Wesley found a way to loose these living stones, making them increasingly mature Christians, so that they became a “sent” community living winsomely and powerfully in the public arena. Many of them actually became the circuit riding preachers because Wesley knew that they were the ones who had the intuition necessary to reach their people.
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