In the 1st chapter of John's gospel it says: "So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father."
I have also heard it paraphrased "God (in Jesus) pitched his tent in our backyard" (a little campy for my taste, but you get the picture). In many of my readings, missional churches are often described as "Incarnational". One way to interpret that word is: "believers that practice incarnational living".
I found this little blurb on a web site: "Without giving up His divine qualities, Jesus became fully immersed within the culture of the people to whom He brought the Great News. He was part of the culture, yet transcended it. He lived happily within the culture, yet was an agent of transformation. The incarnation is a challenge to understand and live within the world of the unchurched culture. We must make the Great News culturally relevant to them, and take it into their world.
Outreach to the unchurched must consider the issues of incarnation by going where people go, and living in their world. The methods we use to reach them must be based upon developing relationships that are authentic. We must model a lifestyle of Christ-likeness in the context of friendship. The church must meet the needs of the unchurched within the world in which they live."
Some questions for us:
- What should "incarnation living" look like for those at Parkwood?
- Should this be a way of life that is talked-about, and witnessed-to in all we do?
- What are some ways to effectively get this to permeate the thinking of a congregation of believers?
Your thoughts on 'incarnational living'? ...do you have another way of seeing it??
Monday, May 21, 2007
"Incarnational"
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5 comments:
in·car·nate
a. invested with bodily and especially human nature and form.
b. made manifest or comprehensible
I like the second part of that definition the best.
I think that the best way for Parkwood to live out incarnatially (if thats even a word) is to make the message of the Cross comprehensible, not in the sense of changing the message to work around a culture but by building authentic relationships with people and by understanding the culture which would enable us spread the message throughout the culture while being a relevant church body within the culture.
Good point... Jesus = God incarnate
God is 'comprehendible' because of Jesus. He shows us God!
I agree... "building relationships" and "understanding the culture" appear to be foundational in incarnational living. It would do us good to have a NT crash-course on how Jesus did this! We have to choose to be intentional in these.
Perhaps a next layer (and hopefully we can build more discussion around these as well):
+++ How does a person (or congregation) manifest the goodness of God in a community?
+++ How can our words and actions be best used to make God's love comprehensible in our community?
These are important for us to know (and act on), especially if we hope to lead a congregation to become mission-minded.
I agree with the above comments and I do think that many of the questions raised will help us to express this missional lifestyle to others.
The idea of incarnate is really neat. And I never saw myself as an incarnation of Christ but that is exactly what we are called to be. The old saying of we are the only Jesus any one will ever see has a lot of value behind it. Brendon's words of trying to make the cross more comprehensible is a huge task but not because God does not what people to know Him. But rather the church and the devil has put up so many walls to God that he become unintelligible. But Jesus became flesh so we would understand. Now we need to begin to decide what form we need to take on in our immediate community so others can know Jesus.
Yea, that's what I was getting at. Many people have preconceived notions of what the church is and how it works. Everything from out to take lots of peoples money to walking around pointing the fingers and condemning. Thats why being relational is so key. You don't jump right out of the gate with, "Hey do you know Jesus?...", but you do connect and set a christ-like example through love (our last meeting: Galatians 5:6), being authentic and intentional, leading to a point where you can address faith issues and they will respond, for or against, but at least receiving the message that we truly care and aren't just out there, as christians, fanatically preaching about Jesus.
I guess that's an ideal situation, but thats how I picture it working. The relationship that is built between two people is what makes Jesus' love incarnational or comprehendible.
Brendon, That was said well, I am excited becasue it seems that we are on the same page. Now we need to beign to see if we can flesh this out in practical ways concerning the people of parkwood. How can we show them incarantional living?
or maybe the questions your dad already gave us
Some questions for us:
- What should "incarnation living" look like for those at Parkwood?
- Should this be a way of life that is talked-about, and witnessed-to in all we do?
- What are some ways to effectively get this to permeate the thinking of a congregation of believers?
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