As the summer nears it’s sad ending, the BLOGFORCE turns to more serious matters. There’s a lot of talk of restructuring and revisioning in the church. Conversations are happening in many places at many levels. But why should the church survive? Any thought of “re” anything supposes something good that must be preserved. What is that?
Today we begin a three-part BLOGFORCE challenge about the church. This week, the challenge is, “What is the reason for the church’s existence?” Who are we and what do we do? Just to make this focussed, we are talking about the “small c” catholic church here. The next question will be about Anglicanism, and the third about the Episcopal Church. This week, we are asking about the worldwide church in all it’s diversity, faithfulness, and sometime failure.
The Rev. David Simmons, ObJN
Acts8 BLOGFORCE Wing Commander
How do I participate in the Blogforce?
Simply blog your answer on your own site, then:
1. Paste the code you can find at the bottom of your post – note that it is code so you will probably need to switch to HTML view in your blog editor. It should look like this on your blog when posted or previewed:
2. Send the permanent link and a 120 word or less abstract to [email protected]. This should be done by no later than 5PM Central Time on Sunday. On Monday, the abstracts will be re-posted with links. At that point, the provided code will point to the round-up page instead of here.
The editorial board of Acts8 reserves the right to decline submissions that are deemed offensive or do not uphold the Guiding Principles.
Look during the week for more information on our next Acts8 tweetchat, which is scheduled for August 25th at 9PM EDT using #acts8tc
We are inherently social animals. Other creatures may be “social,” but we humans cooperate. I forget who expressed this best, but he said, “you’ll never see two chimpanzees carrying a log.” To be fully human is to be immersed in a loving, rewarding, fulfilling, cooperating community. A church is absolutely necessary for a Christian’s spiritual growth. Obviously, I don’t mean some place where you show up for an hour every Sunday morning. If it’s not an integral part of your life, you’re not really doing it right.
Sorry, slightly longer version here:
We are inherently social animals. Other creatures may be “social,” but we humans cooperate. The need for cooperation is so strong in our species that we developed language to a complexity unmatched anywhere else in the animal kingdom. As Jonathan Haidt wrote in The Righteous Mind, “you’ll never see two chimpanzees carrying a log.” To be, to become fully human requires immersion in a loving, rewarding, fulfilling, cooperating community. A church can and should be just such a community. As such, it is absolutely necessary for a Christian’s spiritual growth. Obviously, I don’t mean some place where you show up for an hour every Sunday morning. If it’s not an integral part of your life, you’re not really doing it right.