Yesterday in Sunday School, we continued our two-part look at the church that's forming the basis for the rest of our discussion this semester about how to live life as singles in the body. The self-sacrifice and "other-ness" membership in the body of Christ requires, continues to astound me. No matter if you're looking at what the church is or what it does, there's really in it's mission or working that's focused on us.
One quote that I didn't have time to share this week but that spoke pretty powerfully to me as I was preparing is from Bishop Lesslie Newbigin who was a 20th century Church of Scotland missionary, “The Church is the pilgrim people of God. It is on the move – hastening to the ends of the earth to beseech all men to be reconciled to God, and hastening to the end of time to meet its Lord who will gather all into one. It cannot be understood rightly except in a perspective which is at once missionary and eschatological. We have no liberty to stop until both ends have been reached.”
I just love the idea of the church looking outward and forward. Both eyes on slightly different goals, neither of which are self-satisfaction or self-service. I wonder if we spent our time and energy, money and resources focused on these two things, if we'd really even have time to think about or focus on ourselves? My guess is we'd be too exhausted and spent to use the energy. It's almost hard to imagine, because it's such a foreign concept to the way we do and think about ministry in an American, 21st-century context.
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