Well, the presiding Bishop matters...
Today, after debating meaningless petitions for hours on end we finally got to something meaningful. Now realize, we spent 20 minutes last night deciding whether we should reduce speech times to save time. Today a petition came before the body to add the words "for the transformation of the world" to the mission statement of the church. Today we debated the mission of the church for less than 10 minutes. Two amendments were proposed and the entirety of our time was spent debating these two motions. We didn't even debate the proposed change because Bishop Swenson, one of our more liberal bishops who was presiding decided that she wanted to vote before an order of the day...our break.
This was very frustrating to me because I really wanted to speak against the idea. See, I'm not against the transformation of the world. In fact, I'm very for it but I'm not for it in our mission statement. Why? Because Jesus said "Go and make disciples." that was it! Our call is to make disciples for the sake of disciple making. Disciple making is the end, not the means to an end. See, here's the thing...God is the One who transforms AND the world cannot help but ne transformed when disciples are made. This is a small but important detail. And it matters, but we only took 10 minutes to talk about it. Very frustrating.
Am I making too big a deal of this? Let me know what you think
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2 comments:
Matt, I could not agree more. I even posted about it here.
Is that it? 10 minutes and done? That seems a sorry effort over something so important. My fear is that Bishop Swenson didn't want further discussion. I hope I'm just being too cynical; it looks like you have a pretty good spirit going on down there.
Saw your article...awesome! I also saw Bob Zilhaver speak, and have been trying to follow bits and pieces of the online stream.
Know that you are in our prayers daily. We lifted up you and the other members of our delegetion by name in worship on Sunday and will continue to pray for wisdom and stamina.
You already know what I think!
The primary task of the church is not to transform the world. Rather, the primary task of the church is to BE the church (i.e., a countercultural community that bears witness to the kingdom and makes disciples).
The transformation of the world, as I see it, can never be our mission. It is rather the glorious byproduct of people being authentically discipled.
I'm with you, homefry.
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