Catholicity of the Faith
Submitted by dsimmer on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 16:46
My friend, a Lutheran pastor, recently blogged about Luke 15 and how those celebrations compare with "celebrations" in the church today. Two snippets from Luke 15 follow below, or you can read the entire passage here:
7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
What Dion tackles is the difference between those heavenly celebrations listed above and those we have when our church membership rosters grow. His main argument:
Notice that Luke 15 does NOT say that the angels in heaven throw a party when a disgruntled catholic or baptist from the church down the street transfers to our church. Nor does it say that the angels in heaven wait to rejoice until the "sinner" who repents becomes a contributing part of the organization...pulling his/her own weight! It certainly doesn't even entertain the notion that the angels might celebrate when a church quits looking for valuable "lost" people altogether so that it can give more attention to those who are lucky enough to be found!
What a fair and accurate account of how 21st century American churchgoers tend to live! We tend to shut ourselves in our Fortresses and celebrate those who "sneak out the back door of one church and in the front door of another." It seems we do a pretty crappy job of living the Nicene Creed and ignore Missional Living altogether.
On that note, who is interested in doing some labor of love ministry in the Detroit area? There are a lot of people in this city who could use some help with their homes, yards, cars, etc.
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