Session 6: Tammie

A. Describe how the presence, gifts, and power of the Spirit impact the body of Christ.
The presence of the Holy Spirit is the fresh air that flows through the emerging church as each individual within the church is baptized into the Spirit as that person comes to faith in Christ. These individuals receive power when the Spirit comes upon them and it's a power that compels them to do what they can to contribute to the overall health of the body, that is the church. In that way, each member becomes a gift to the body. I don't know the exact percentage anymore, but at some point I remember reading an article that described how an incredibly small percentage of the members of the church actually volunteer to carry out the church's activities. I can't help but wonder how that statistic might change if we can help people to realize that we are all given power through the Spirit as believers. If we place a bit more emphasis on the power the Spirit gives and share what it means to become part of the body more as Anderson describes on page 177, we might have people seeing the needs and realizing that they can do something to fulfill it rather than having people sitting back and not thinking they have the gifting or the power to do anything about it. In that way, the people of the church also discover their identity through what they contribute as the body is built up and its members drawn closer. In a sense, we have made the idea of receiving power and gifts through the spirit far more difficult than it has to be with our spiritual gifts inventory and finding our purpose (as made popular in recent books). Referring again to page 177, Anderson says its as simple as saying, "I can do that" when a need is expressed.


B. Reflect on the graphs on pages 192-193, how does the reality of the incarnation define the missio Dei?
To put it in the most simple terms, you can't make an impact on the world by remaining secluded in our stained-glass sanctuaries in which we decry the state of the society while running away from it and working hard to maintain the wall of safety around us. In doing so, we have created the Christian ghetto, of sorts, where it is "safe" and the world with all its brokenness and hurts can, in theory, not touch us. The reality is that we are in the world everyday and, like it or not, we bring the troubles of the world in the door with us when we come into the church. Cancer doesn't stop at the door, we just sometimes pretend not to see it. Cutting (just in case you haven't heard of it, that is a practice among teenage girls, especially, to cut themselves with razor blades out of depression or self-image issues or the like) doesn't stop at the door, we just don't look for it. Troubled marriages are in the church and outside of the church. Christ's mission, and ours by extension, was to bind the wounds of the broken hearted. We can't do that if we are just putting on the masks and heading out to services on Sundays. Through the incarnation, Christ reconciled the world to him and we have a mandate to make him known to the world.

C. Explain the relationship of Christ's three-fold apostolic ministry in relationship to the kingdom of God, and in the our society the ECM.
The three-fold apostolic ministry is the central to building the kingdom of God as it looks to the historical Christ, the proclamation of Christ in the present day and the anticipation of the return of Christ in the future. It reinforces the idea of "Jesus Christ - the same yesterday, today and forever." It also places us historically in a long line of believers as it positions us as the next link in the chain as we proclaim the gospel today and do the work of building the kingdom. In a sense, this three-fold ministry also helps to bring the world to the church as it proclaims Christ not as some dusty historical figure, but also as a present reality and a future hope.

D. How has this text stirred, rattled, or shaken your theology?
The text has been extremely helpful to me in giving words and a theological shape to my own thoughts over the past few years. I've often thought that the churches that I recognize as being more emergent - or at least the ones with which I am acquainted through listening to podcasts or visiting their web sites - seem to be greatly grounded in following the Spirit, finding its place in culture and being incarnation in its own locale. For example, it was encouraging to read the three-fold apostolic ministry as Anderson described it and recognize that such thoughts may easily be the basis for a ministry whose goal (as I have heard it stated) is to bring the kingdom of God crashing into earth.

I'm also finding myself thinking more and more about the differences between the church at Jerusalem and Antioch and between adherence to the law of Moses and identifying with Abraham as a model of faith. I must confess Anderson's work has shone a different light on the church at Jerusalem. Over the years through my work with the youth (especially in Bible quizzing), I became quite familiar with Acts and with many of Paul's letters, but I had never picked up the idea that the church at Jerusalem was a stagnant body, clinging to tradition because I had, perhaps, been blinded somewhat by the desciption of the church in Acts 2 and never noticed its shortcomings. And, despite reading Paul's letters, I never really saw the disputes between Paul and the apostles at Jerusalem as a struggle for the future of the church.