I said I was going to post about the Uniting Church, and still plan to do that, but I've just been having some thoughts I wanted to capture about the things I do (or would) value in Church life. These are partly triggered by beginning to read Diana Butler Bass' book, "Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith".
These thoughts are fairly unformed as yet, but are still central to my thinking at the moment.
1. Reaching back — reaching forward. I think it's really important to value the whole, historic Christian tradition. Too many churches have lost a sense of their place within the broader tradition and have jettisoned any link with history or tradition. But at the same time, the past cannot act as an anchor, blocking us from moving forward into the new future into which God is calling us. We must be churches of today and even tomorrow — not churches of yesterday. I think one of the most important tasks for leaders in the church is to enable that creative tension between tradition and newness, between consistency with past visions and struggling into new visions, enabling the Church with integrity to reach back and reach forward.
2. Graciousness. Grace is clearly at the heart of the Christian gospel — what we experience from God and what we are called to. But for me the word 'grace' has so much baggage. Talk of 'tough grace' and 'cheap grace', and countless sermons supposedly on grace which seemed rather weighted towards condemnation, have all combined to sully the word 'grace' for me. But I find that reframing the central thoughts with the word 'graciousness', helps me to regain the sense of gentle kindness, strong self-giving, and absolute acceptance which is (I think) what grace has always been about. And so for me, a church ought, above all, to be characterised by graciousness.
3. Acknowledging historic and communal wisdom, yet being bound only by the law of love. I don't like the anything goes approach. I think it's important to hear what past generations thought was healthy and appropriate and acceptable. I think it's important to work out principles of living and shared understandings in community. But in the end, something in me rebels any time one of these historical or communal pieces of wisdom is solidified; when they become rules or regulations. In the end I think that flexibility to move within the law of love in any given situation is not just important, it's vital.
4. Hospitality. From welcoming the stranger, to living with the other, to caring for the enemy, hospitality is central to the gospel and to what the Church is called to be.
5. Involving. Church should be all about the encouragement of, use of and experimentation with the gifts of all God's people. Worship should be the same. I am so over the whole 'sitting watching people up the front do stuff' thing.
6. Breaking down the secular/sacred divide. Seeing God in nature, in culture, in others of other faiths and no faiths. A positive view of God's world and the future God is calling it into.
I'm sure there's a bunch more, but I wanted to get these out there.