My thanks to Pastor Jeremy Langner and Pastor Chris Bishopp for their thoughtful article, What is the Church? I really appreciated their wrestling with the question and the way Professor Dieter took them back to the Augsburg Confession. “The Church is the community of believers, in which the Gospels are rightly taught, and the Sacraments are rightly administered. (Augsburg Confession, Article VII)”
Their response was: “Could the recipe for Church actually be this simple? Could it actually boil down to only three fundamental ingredients? The Gospels (rightly taught). The Sacraments (rightly administered). The community of believers.”
This question and this wrestling is very similar to a question I keep hearing about what is the future of our church? This question arises out of a couple related concerns.
First, why does the Church no longer matter in our society. This question is related to the model of church as Christendom, where church and government were two halves of the same coin. As pastors Jeremy and Chris note, many harmful things have happened because of the misuse of power in this model. I agree that it has not served us well or necessarily kept us faithful as the Church of Jesus Christ.
Second, what are we going to do when our congregation, synod, National Church can no longer survive in its current structure. This is related to the model of the church as institution. This model has served us well in the past and allowed us to do much good in our communities and around the world.
But it has led us to think in a certain hierarchical and almost co-dependent way. It has disempowered the laity and relied on structures to be the carriers of mission and ministry. It has not helped us as individuals to be faithful disciples of Jesus.
Both concerns relate to the church as religious competitor. We have for years tried to work against this notion by our commitment to ecumenism including our full communion relationship with the Anglican Church of Canada. Since 2005, when we adopted a statement to the Jewish people, we also have been on a road of learning and respect for our interreligious partners.
So where do I think the future of the Church lies? What do I think the Church is?
I have said the same things for years. The more each member of our church becomes a faithful disciple of Jesus, acting out that faith through spiritual practices of prayer, scripture reading, gathering as a community for right teaching of scripture and proper proclamation of the gospel, generous giving of financial and personal resources, service to and with neighbours in the community, in the nation and around the world, the more we will be the community of believers that Jesus has called us to be.
During my report to the last two conventions I have said: I love our church and I’m proud of what we do and what we stand for! We pray fervently, we work for justice passionately, we face challenges head on, and we embrace the future with hope. We give thanks to God for the grace we have received and strive to share that grace with the world in great need.
This is the kind of disciple I want to be. This is the kind of church I want to belong to. This is the kind of church that will attract others to become faithful disciples.
The way the Church will form itself into communities and other structures, well, that is the working of the Holy Spirit calling us to some new ways of being.
Right now, we only see though a glass dimly. But if we remain flexible, and continue to seek the leading of the Spirit, the Church will survive, because in the end it is God’s Church, not our church, and with God it will be good.
Rev. Susan Johnson
ELCIC National Bishop
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