Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Bodies or Souls?
- Part I Human Nature as Physical
- Part II The Formation of Persons: Retrospect and Prospect
- Part III Emodied Christian Life and The Church: Retrospect and Prospect
- 7 Why Bodies Need Churches
- 8 Church Bodies
- 9 The Embodied Church
- 10 Concluding Thoughts
- Selected Resources
- Index
- References
8 - Church Bodies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Bodies or Souls?
- Part I Human Nature as Physical
- Part II The Formation of Persons: Retrospect and Prospect
- Part III Emodied Christian Life and The Church: Retrospect and Prospect
- 7 Why Bodies Need Churches
- 8 Church Bodies
- 9 The Embodied Church
- 10 Concluding Thoughts
- Selected Resources
- Index
- References
Summary
IT’S NOT ABOUT ME
I was attending a meeting of the worship committee at the home of our pastor, Josh. We were partway through the Christmas series in our little church and the task of the meeting was to discuss the next series that was going to focus on the mission of the church.
Part of the impetus for the next topic was a comment made by a congregant that he had a hard time describing our church to anyone. Josh was asking us how we talk about our church to those who don’t know us. Various comments were made, but we all agreed that we tend to mention our church’s founding scripture and consistent challenge, Micah 6:8, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.”
Committee member Sonia then said, “I have to tell you a story. In years past, whenever I have talked about my faith to non-Christians, I was always doing my best to avoid ever mentioning the church. Somehow the church was not only not relevant, but terribly distracting. Last week I spent five hours with a non-Christian friend and we talked a lot about faith. To my own surprise, I found that, having been a part of this church for the past few years, I could not talk about my faith without talking about our church – our community of faith is so much a part of my spiritual life and my faith. It’s just not about me or my individual faith.”
CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN LIFE
Sonia’s story well captures a major point of this book – robust Christian faith is embedded within and emergent from the life of a community of faith. In the previous chapter we explored the processes of Christian formation and transformation in individual persons, with a particular eye toward our more general discussion of how people develop and change. The strong theme of this previous discussion was the very social nature of all human development. It is primarily in the context of interactions with others that persons change – for better or worse.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Physical Nature of Christian LifeNeuroscience, Psychology, and the Church, pp. 121 - 139Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012