imagining how the church can reorient around mission

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him (enthroned) at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to
come.” Ephesians 1:18-21

In the 1^st chapter of Ephesians there is a remarkable passage that talks about power.  In
particular, it refers  to the type of power that Christian’s possess as a result of their union with Jesus. I guess the question for me is what is that power? What does it look like? The text is emphatic; it is spectacular. As a matter of fact, Paul uses four different words, synonyms, to describe how dynamic that power is. What it is compared to in the text is the power that raised Christ from the dead and enthroned Him as King. That’s significant power (as I wrote that last sentence, my voice unsurprisingly deepened and got louder like Moses in the movie, “The Ten Commandments”)!!! read more

The great Francis Schaeffer (he rocked the chin beard before it got popular) wrote in his book entitled, No Little People (I am aware that this is a very long quote, but in lieu of the present “Superstardom” of modern Christianity, it seems warranted),

Jesus commands Christians to seek consciously the lowest room. All of us–pastors, teachers, professional religious workers and nonprofessional included–are tempted to say, I will take the larger place because it will give me more influence for Jesus Christ. Both individual Christians and Christian organizations fall prey to the temptation of rationalizing this way as we build bigger and bigger empires. But according to the Scripture this is backwards: we should consciously take the lowest place unless the Lord himself extrudes us into a greater one. read more

       The first word that comes to mind for me when I contemplate this word is weakness. It is difficult for me to envision that God would want his followers to be weak, so I wanted to understand this idea of being powerless. Christ called his followers to be like Christ. If we are supposed to live our lives incarnationally then we need to approach culture with a position of powerlessness. Christ lived his life in a powerless position. He had every right to approach people in a position of power, but he chose to humble himself and be powerless to society. Then we find that Jesus calls us to be missional and live in a powerless state of mind. Powerlessness is radically counter culture. Powerlessness goes against everything sought after in our current culture. In our culture power gives people identity and meaning. Jesus calls us to live incarnationally because we find our identity and meaning in him and not in power. To live incarnationally is to live humbly and understand that God has created everyone with purpose. Power in this sense is an illusion of dominance. This dominance degrades God’s creation, and disposes equality. Who are we to understand God let alone his creation apart from Christ? God calls his followers to be in an active loving relationship with him. Relationship is based on balance. Without balance relationships turn to neglect and abuse. God calls us to love not only our neighbors but our enemies as well. We have no problem humbling ourselves before God, yet we seek power over others. God calls us to humble ourselves even before our enemies. Christ’s sacrifice is the greatest example of powerlessness.  

-Cory