Awhile back,
a person who has been regularly attending the church where I am pastor, and is
also taking some seminary classes, shared with me one of her assignments. Provide your definition of the church in
fifty words or less. She asked me if I would
be willing to share my definition with her.
As someone
who has done doctoral work in religion, my gut-level initial response to the
question would be to do some research before offering a response. There would be value in that, but I have
thought enough about this and try to work out of some understanding of the
church every day. Instead of doing any
research, I thought for a while and typed.
Here is the definition I came up with, and when I had finished it and
checked for the number of words, it was exactly fifty.
The church is a community of people who have
been touched by God’s grace and love in Jesus Christ and who are seeking to
live in such a way, individually and together, that they grow in love of God
and others, and witness to the grace of God in Jesus.
So
as someone who has a Ph.D. in religious studies, though ecclesiology was not my
emphasis, I recognize that there are some things that could be added to this
definition, some questions that are not answered in it. At the same time, both theologically and
pastorally, I think this definition has a lot to offer. The church is about being touched and
transformed by God as we know God in Jesus the Christ. It is about living together in such a way that
we grow in love and thereby witness, in word and deed, to the transforming power
of God’s love in Jesus.
There
are more well-rounded and beautiful statements about the church. I am glad to be working to help the church be
more like the simple definition I offered.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
