How do we think of ‘church work?’ The image, which my own experience with ‘church’ has shaped into my mind, is that of a static institution honey-combed with slots in which people serve. The people that serve in these slots are rather interchangeable. I may serve in a slot one year and someone else doing pretty much the same job serves in the same slot the next year. I think this helps people feel that they are being good Christians by putting in a couple of hours of church duty per week. But it seems rather dead. And how does such a church speak outwardly into a world that is hungry for something other than the same sort of institutional life that we find everywhere in the world?
This is a picture of an institutional church filled with slots seeking people. I would contrast this with an image of a community of people seeking purpose within a spiritual body. Ah, you can just feel the fluidity, the melting of that rigid structure into something that flows both inwardly and outwardly. Here there is Life flowing both deeply within our souls and outwardly into a world of rigid facades where people are hungry for deep meaning.
How do we break out of this institutional rigidity? It is not really a matter of how we structure the church. It is not trying to find some sort of church program that will do this. That just adds program upon program. It is a matter of how we work within the church structure. We do not need to change what we now have, but perhaps we need to look at how we approach what we now have. Here is the question we should ask ourselves. Are we seeking in our work in the church to simply fulfill an obligation -- to discharge a duty -- or is this an opportunity to really dig into the divine purpose for which each of us was created? If the church is static it is because a rigid church position forms us. We become quite ‘churchy.’ The church becomes living as we ourselves live our work in the church from the inside out. Paul says in Ephesians 2:10: For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. This goes to the heart of who we are, our essential identity. We are designed inwardly for a purpose on this earth.
Do we regard ‘church work’ as the outward expression of our inner identity? If we did, then our work in the body of Christ would be about the most meaningful thing we do in life. That few hours per week of church work would encompass our whole being. If we give God but a small space to work within us that is all He needs. In that small space He can ‘mine’ into that which is of ultimate importance in our lives. It only takes a small door to lead into a large space. It reminds me of the main entrance into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which was erected over the site where Jesus was born. The church itself is immense, once you get inside. But you enter the church through a door so small that you have to duck through it.
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This is a picture of an institutional church filled with slots seeking people. I would contrast this with an image of a community of people seeking purpose within a spiritual body. Ah, you can just feel the fluidity, the melting of that rigid structure into something that flows both inwardly and outwardly. Here there is Life flowing both deeply within our souls and outwardly into a world of rigid facades where people are hungry for deep meaning.
How do we break out of this institutional rigidity? It is not really a matter of how we structure the church. It is not trying to find some sort of church program that will do this. That just adds program upon program. It is a matter of how we work within the church structure. We do not need to change what we now have, but perhaps we need to look at how we approach what we now have. Here is the question we should ask ourselves. Are we seeking in our work in the church to simply fulfill an obligation -- to discharge a duty -- or is this an opportunity to really dig into the divine purpose for which each of us was created? If the church is static it is because a rigid church position forms us. We become quite ‘churchy.’ The church becomes living as we ourselves live our work in the church from the inside out. Paul says in Ephesians 2:10: For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. This goes to the heart of who we are, our essential identity. We are designed inwardly for a purpose on this earth.
Do we regard ‘church work’ as the outward expression of our inner identity? If we did, then our work in the body of Christ would be about the most meaningful thing we do in life. That few hours per week of church work would encompass our whole being. If we give God but a small space to work within us that is all He needs. In that small space He can ‘mine’ into that which is of ultimate importance in our lives. It only takes a small door to lead into a large space. It reminds me of the main entrance into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which was erected over the site where Jesus was born. The church itself is immense, once you get inside. But you enter the church through a door so small that you have to duck through it.
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Contemplative practice can bring us through that narrow opening into an immense region of Spiritual purpose. It is not even a matter of struggling with how we are suppose to do this church work to make it fit our inner design. If our contemplative practice focuses us on working our innermost being open to the Life of Christ within us, this begins to release our Life-charged inner nature into our external work. Over time our work in the church, and everywhere else for that matter, will take on the shape of our inner design.
This is the struggle of becoming. It is the birth of our created souls. Our work will not be benign. Our spiritual becoming involves breaking through the thick armour of our ‘false self.’ As we move in the work for which God created us He will bring much to the surface that He wants to purge out of us. We must expect to walk through rough places of conflict and opposition, and some ‘dark nights’ of painful enlightenment about ourselves.
Scripture talks about silver being refined. The silversmith heats the silver to a liquid. This frees it up so that the impurities can rise to the surface. For so long the silver has clutched onto those inner impurities. They have become part of the silver itself. When the silver becomes liquid it is able to release those particles of impurity. They rise to the surface and the silversmith scoops them off. Then he or she can mold the silver into a beautiful and useful object -- a wine goblet, perhaps, or an eating utensil.
Contemplation makes us workable to God. When we release our whole being into His hands it makes us as molten silver. When a solid becomes liquid the rigidly bonded molecules can flow and slide freely over one another. It is an unfreezing process. Perhaps we can think of contemplation as just such a de-solidification. The rigid thing that we have built up to protect us and make us acceptable to the world around us is an unworkable object in the hands of our Maker. Contemplation is the practice of releasing our solidified self into the hands of the Molder of our lives. We become clay in the hands of the Potter.
This is how God can use church work to form us into His true intention for us. He shapes our work to serve the purpose that He is working over the whole earth. It really is a big deal. We give Him the space to unfreeze us from our false self and He integrates us into the entirety of His work on the earth. You see, it is not just an isolated slot that we work within. We become connected to the whole body of Christ. All things came into being in Christ. That few hours a week of church service can become spiritually connected into everything that there is. On the surface it looks small but its roots run deep. It connects with the very center of Being itself.
If we walk in such a surrendered manner letting God shape us, the emerging purpose within each of us fits us together into a living body. The gifts of others are the very means by which our own gifts get unwrapped. The body that comes into being through the release of our inner nature is itself the nurturing ground in which we grow in purpose. It works back on itself. Paul presents a profound picture of this in Ephesians 4: 12. The gifts that God gives us are …to equip the saints for the work of ministry. Working within our gifts, that is, within Divine purpose is …for building up the body of Christ. Which in turn has the result that …we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature (personhood), to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. You can see how beautifully this works. It grows upon itself. If only a few of us reach for the depths of spiritual purpose it begins to infuse the whole church with the spiritual nurturance by which the whole body reaches “…the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” This fullness does not stop at the church walls but reaches outwardly with the living, breathing Presence of Christ into a world hungry for meaning and purpose.
