This
summer has be a quieter time for my husband and I to enjoy being
married (we celebrated 6 months together last week), while I have been
taking theological German translation classes and reading through as
much of the "missions cannon" as possible. The goal is to read
twenty-two books. This afternoon, before I started my 13th book, I
decided to peek at a book that just arrived in the mail for an
ecclesiology class this Fall. I was struck by a a quote in the
introductory pages by Walter Rauschenbusch, of Social Gospel fame:
O
God, we pray for thy Church, which is set to-day amid the perplexities
of a changing order, and face to face with a great new task. We remember
with love the nurture she gave our spiritual life in its infancy, the
tasks she sets for our growing strength, the influence of the devoted
hearts she gathers, the steadfast power for good she has exerted. When
we compare her with all the human institutions, we rejoice, for there in
none like her. But when we judge her by the mind of her Master, we bow
in pity and contrition. Oh, baptize her afresh in the life-giving spirit
of Jesus! Grant her a new birth, though it be with travail of
repentance and humiliation. Bestow upon her a more imperious
responsiveness to duty, a swifter compassion with suffering, and an
utter loyalty to the will of God. Put upon her lips the ancient gospel
of her Lord. Help her to proclaim boldly the coming of the Kingdom of
God and the doom of all that resist it. Fill her with the prophet's
scorn for tyranny and with a Christ-like tenderness for the heavy-laden
and down-trodden. Give her faith to espouse the cause of the people, and
the hands that grope after freedom and light to recognize the bleeding
hands of Christ. Bid her cease from seeking her own life, lest she lose
it. Maker her valiant to give her life to humanity, that like her
crucified Lord she may mount by the path of the cross to higher glory.
("For the Church", 1909)
I
say amen to that, though I'm sure Rauschenbusch and I have some
different ideas as to how some of these things would look like.
Nevertheless, I agree with all that he wrote here and I am reminded that
I need to be praying for the church, universal as well as the
congregations closest to my heart. God has called me into the ministry,
in part, to love his Bride. May I be ever mindful of that despite my
preoccupation with the out-beyond: the very birth of new expressions of
gathered peoples.
The
Lord has given us new opportunities to invest in our local church,
which very large and over a hundred years old. We are praying that we
will not only serve this congregation well, but that we will take the
opportunity to be brought up a little more by those older and wiser
within the ministry. I still hope and pray that we will be able to
church plant and do missions, but I am also recognizing that God is very
concerned that we love his Bride at all ages, from all backgrounds, and
in every place.
