Tuesday, June 1
Ch.5 How the Church Nourishes Spirituality.
Thanks for the many responses. They will result in an interactive book. Part II of the book deals with nourishing Christian spirituality through the church (ch. 5), worship (ch. 6), the Word (ch. 7), Eucharist (ch. 8), prayer (ch. 9), and the disciplines (ch. 10). Each chapter deals with (1) the current crises. (2) The ancient understanding and practice. (3) Nourishing baptismal identity (union with Christ), and (4) Nourishing the baptismal pattern of spirituality (dying and rising). Don't try to comment on the whole chapter. Concentrate on one or two aspects of the chapter, especially where you have an observation or example.Thanks!
Ch. 5-How the Church Nourishes Spirituality
A. Many people feel the current church is in crisis. So much attention has been focused on growth that we have lost the nature of the church. The church appears to be a mile wide but an inch deep. Many experience the church as shaped by the market, appealing to consumers, characterized by hype, and lacking in committed people. It appears to be more an extension of culture than a continuation of the Incarnation, more evangelistic than missiological, more individualistic than communal, more hierarchical than relational.
B. What can we learn from the ancient church? It certainly was not without its problems. In spite of this, there are specific insights we need to regain today. The ancient church was built on the story of God, was small and simple and saw itself as the womb in which people were conceived, gestated, born, and nourished in a process of formation. It sought to be a community of friendships and an icon of Trinitarian relationships. It described itself as one (in spirit and truth), holy (not just like culture), catholic (affirming the whole church), and apostolic (rooted in apostolic teaching and example).
C. How can we restore the church as the context in which baptismal identity is nourished?
1. Restore the nature of the church as incarnational.
2. Restore true community of friendship in which baptismal identity is lived out.
3. Restore baptismal symbolism (a water basin at the entry of the church?)
4. Recover occasional services for the reaffirmation of baptismal identity.
D. How can the church nourish Christians to live in the baptismal pattern of death and resurrection?
1. Recover the performative power of ritual.
2. Reintroduce ancient rituals that help people deal with sin.
3. Restore penitential rites?
4. Recover healing rites?
5. Restore transparent leadership and modeling the struggle to live in the pattern of death and resurrection?
In sum, how does a church become a community of real people that nurtures newcomers and each other in their baptismal identity with Christ, encouraging one another to live in an authentic pattern of dying to sin and rising to new life in Christ? What have you done in your church to fulfill these goals?
Spirituality is a participation in this reality.
Response? Write me at: rwebber@northern.seminary.edu Include information about yourself in the event I interact with your material in Ancient-Future Spirituality. Thanks!
Bob Webber
Myers Professor of Ministry
Director of M.A. in Worship and Spirituality
Northern Seminary—www.seminary.edu
(See Northern's M.A. in Worship and Spirituality and D.Min. in Worship by clicking on the website.)
