dream-awakener

food for thought

today i had the opportunity to connect with kurt fredrickson the director of fuller's doctor of ministry program, which happens to be the world's largest. we met for the first time about a month ago. my time with kurt was both rich and encouraging. he asked me about myself and my ministry, and i learned more about what makes his heart beat. we have a lot in common. i had read half of a hundred page paper he wrote recently and was throughly encouraged by his paper.

he has read most all of the published works of dietrich bonhoeffer and some of the unpublished works as well. his paper is entitled "an ecclesiology for late modernity: the missio-ecclesiology of dietrich bonhoeffer. let me share just a few of the many nugets from this paper.

"The church can never be isolated from the world as God is not isolated from the world. Bonhoeffer notes: “God is the beyond in the midst of our life. The church stands, not at the boundaries where human powers give out, but it the middle of the village”

"For Bonhoeffer saw Christ is the one who present in the world and for the world, calling the church to follow him, and to be the church for others. Bonhoeffer presses for a new understanding of church of a changing time. This emphasis stresses four primary themes. First, the church for others is understood in light of Christ as the suffering God in this world. Christ on the cross was pushed out from the world and forsaken into the world by the Father. This paradox is resolved only by God’s love for the world. The church in the world in weakness, is, in small part, a realization of the longings of the Christ.

Second, in Bonhoeffer’s missio-ecclesiology transcendence is redefined. God is one who is beyond and in the midst of the world. So transcendence must be understood as the one who is beyond our reach and revealed only through points of contact, in our neighbor in daily life.

Third, the orientation of the church must change. The church must no longer function in a survival mode, but rather is renewed so that it might preach reconciliation and redemption to humankind and the world.

Fourth, the church for others means participating in God’s sufferings. The church encounters Jesus on his cross. The church shares in God’s sufferings at the hands of a godless world."

“The church moves forward not upon the enthusiasms and rapid successes of pragmatism, but rather upon emerging theological convictions that do not have a predetermined end in sight.”

i trust that is some food for your thoughts.

posted by J.R. Woodward @ 6:34 PM