photo by erin dunigan
What does this (see the sower and the seed, part 1) have to do with being missional and starting new churches?
Two things I would raise, but I’m sure there are many more.
First, it is my sincere belief that God has given us all that we need to be faithful in the moment we find ourselves in. We don’t need more money, more believers, more leaders, more buildings, more of anything. God didn’t bring us this far in our journey to abandon us or have us fail. God is with us. God is active. God is in our places of ministry and among our people. The challenge is to have the eyes and heart of Christ. II Corinthians 5:16 – “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view…” We need a new viewpoint from which to see God at work. We tend to see deficits where there are assets. Even the desert can be a welcome place in its loneliness. Our deserts need not be places we run from, but we can embrace them. There is a wealth of life there.
Second, this parable challenges both those in church leadership and those who are the baptized members of the church. We have an insufficient understanding of stewardship and discipleship. The purpose of discipleship, the actual stewardship of leadership is to scatter the baptized. The baptized are the ones who have this “treasure in clay jars” (II Corinthians 4:7). The baptized are the ones who need to be shared, scattered like seed near and far. We have a theology that actually supports this, but our practice is to train up people in the faith so they can stay with us and make our ministries successful. We have yet to embrace an adequate understanding of discipleship that would be truly sending, i.e. missional in its nature. We will let the occasional missionary go, but certainly you don’t mean we should take our best and brightest and send them off to start a new work, a new church?
When I was a child in Sunday School I remember being taught the difference between “Faith” and “Dead Sea Faith”. Faith was given away. Dead Sea Faith was held on to. It had not outlet, didn’t go beyond its own shores. It seems to me that we need a theology of discipleship that prepares people to go and then we need to act like God does in the parables – send, search, spend, celebrate.
This is a blog, so here’s the interaction. How do we get to the place where we are not afraid to send those we train? How do we train a people who want to feel comfortable and comforted, into being those lights in the world? How do we get ourselves out?
Rev. Dr. Craig S. Williams
Associate, Western Office of Church Development
PCUSA
949.219.4522
craig.williams@pcusa.org
