Taking Inventory of the Church at Pentecost
Do you do your job today, whatever it might be, the same way you did it 10 years ago. How about 20 years ago? Or 50?
How about 2000?
This Sunday we will celebrate the birthday of the “Church.”
Let’s consider this Pentecost to be one of those important birthdays — like reaching 30 or 40, when we take stock of our lives and consider what the last years have meant and what will carry us into the future.
Pentecost marks the occasion when all the gathered disciples came to understand that what they would do from this point on mattered. They were no longer just followers. They were leaders.
We’ve drawn a great deal from that Pentecostal experience over the centuries. Lots of roles and structures were defined. Some of it was good, efficient and served the Pentecostal mission. Some of it made life easier and richer for those in control.
Let’s give ourselves the benefit of the doubt and assume that every Church custom or procedure is rooted in God’s love. Let’s also assume that the people who created the structure of the Church were doing the best they could with the resources, tools and environment they had to work with. That includes their understanding of their mission.
So here we are in Pentecost 2013. Everything in every aspect of our lives has been dramatically restructured in the last two decades—the workplace, the family, community and international relations, education, leisure—everything.
Everything except Church. In Church, we continue to assume that systems have to be the way they are—even as we witness wholesale failure in many aspects of Church life.
This Pentecost could be a pivotal birthday for the Church.
It is good time to reflect on what the Church might become if we could reassess what we do—all of what we do.
Start with the basic message. God loves us. Pay attention to the biblical mandates. Go into all the world. Preach the Gospel. Baptize. Make disciples.
The Church may think it does this already. They assess and examine, but mostly they do their assessments within tightly drawn parameters and expectations — and support of the hierarchy — keeping things running smoothly — is a key expectation.
Can we put aside centuries of assumptions?
In the next few posts we’ll take inventory on the customary Church. What’s good? What’s not so good? What can we do better?