Living in Exile

I like to listen to podcasts in my car on the way to and from work and today I was listening to a podcast from Artisan Church and a few thoughts came together. I've talked before about Michael Frost's book Exiles:Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture, which is excellent. How do we live authentically in our communities? Artisan were considering this passage which holds some keys about how we do this.

Jeremiah 29:5-8 (New Living Translation)
“Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.”

I like the bit about working for the peace and prosperity of the communities in which we live - 'for its welfare will determine your welfare' - that's an interesting thought and I'm not sure that it's one which most churches consider when thinking about their purpose. Our church statement is; “Followers of Jesus Christ; a welcoming community of people, encouraging one another to reach our potential in God, living and working in society to creatively share His message of hope for all.” , which I like (we worked hard to get a form of words which talked about us as a community of believers as well as our place in the wider community). But it's interesting to consider a church statement which simply says something like 'Working for the peace and prosperity of the community we live in' - I quite like that.

Kester Brewin in his fantastic book 'The Complex Christ' says - ‘The local Church needs to ‘incarnate’ in a specific location and a specific culture..we too often experience Church as an organisation that has absolutely no need for it’s surrounding community or area. It’s an appendage – something slightly apart and independent – not needing the neighbouring culture in order to survive'

He says, ‘Churches must aspire to become centres of gift exchange in the broadest sense ..whatever gifts there are in the community, the church should be the place where they can be exchanged or shared .. this is about engaging with the local environment and having open boundaries ..it’s about declaring our interdependence with the locality we find ourselves in’

Artisan Church here.

Kester here

'>