Pronouncing Our Purpose: Pomposity or Precision?


Have you ever gone down to one of your favorite stores only to find a “Going out of business” sign posted? It’s a great time to get a bargain, but what happens after that? Someone once encountered the following sign across the window of one establishment that was closing its doors: “Going out of business. Forgot what our business was.”

As tragic as that may sound, it was certainly an honest self-appraisal. What about us as a church? What is our business? Where are we going? What is our purpose for being here in Pocatello?  A church without a purpose is a little like Alice in the fairy tale Alice in Wonderland. In a conversation with the Cheshire Cat, Alice asked, "Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the cat. "I don't much care where," said Alice. "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the cat.

It is vitally important to know where we are going as a church, just as it is important for us to know that about our individual lives. The main purpose of the Church, according to the 2008 Discipline, Paragraph 120, is the “formation of disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” This statement may sound like impossible to achieve or it may seem to reek of an exaggerated sense of self-importance. But what it actually does is to provide a guide and direction for our ministry. Let’s break this statement down into its constitutive elements to probe its meaning more deeply.

Formation - As human beings, we possess the potential for consciousness of a quality of life infused with a sense of purpose, meaning and significance. Our hearts, souls and minds are created to incline us toward a life that is compassionate, passionate, open to and caring of others, which embraces spiritual values and moral insight. All of this exists as a potential life - the capacity and possibilities are a part of human consciousness, but as potentials these qualities of life must be taught and cultivated. The church functions, then, as that place where human capacities such as kindness, love, mercy, generosity, justice and compassion are brought out from latency to full expression in persons.
Disciples - A disciple is a person who is in the relationship of student or trainee or apprentice to another. A disciple willingly takes on the regimen and discipline of life necessary for learning what is being taught.
Of Jesus Christ - Jesus Christ is our teacher, the one who is at the center of our life and work together. It is the centrality of Jesus Christ that sets the church apart from other social organizations. With Jesus at the core of the church’s life, his life and teaching becomes the lens through which we read the Bible, examine our own lives, look out at the world around us, and engage that world.
For the transformation of the world: It does not take long being in the world before most people develop the recognition that things are not the way they should be. This is particularly true when one tries to cultivate a life based upon spiritual insights and principles. Transformation of the world refers to creating the conditions that are optimal for the growth of persons towards wholeness and health in body, mind and spirit. This is the original meaning of “salvation.” There is a mutually reinforcing interplay between the growth and development of human individuals in the context of a community that endeavors to model itself upon spiritual ideals and ways of relating, and how that community seeks to live out those ideals in relationship to the larger world around them. This involves the development of relationships that embody the radical inclusiveness and grace-filled intentions and purposes of God.

The statement found in the 2008 Discipline is not an overblown pompous pontification about our purpose. It is a description of the only real reason for being a church: to provide a setting in which persons come to know Jesus Christ and grow and deepen as his disciples in the world. What the church provides is the laboratory wherein the gold of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is refined in the crucible of human hearts. The content of faith is shared and the life it espouses is experimented with and finally embraced.

Purpose provides a direction that guides our activities. But it is not enough to know where we are going, we need also to know how we are going to get there. We need to have a map or a plan.

Tomorrow: Make a New Plan, Stan


(Images: Cheshire cat from http://katrinastonoff.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/1book22.jpg;  sign from http://blog.swiftkickonline.com/going%20out%20of%20business.jpg; 2008 Discipline from http://www.cokesbury.com/products/1.5/9780687647859.jpg;  

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