JC's helper: What constitutes "Church"?

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

What constitutes "Church"?

We have Space2B at our church. It is hard to describe it, but essentially it is the back of our church set up for easy conversation with hot drinks and open to people. We have some "sustainability" things happening there and in conjunction with the Multi-ethnic council and DCC we do a lot of stuff with new settlers. Because the people who usually look after it are away, I spent more time there today than usual. I can say I really enjoyed it. Lots of loving conversation and human connection. Now most of these people do not come to church worship on Sunday, so the church people and even some of those in church leadership have no idea what goes on in this place. But I see these people as a kind of congregation in their own right. One lady told me today about how important the friends she had at "Church" were to her.

The other thing that has struck me is that we have all these meaningful connections with these people, and they in turn are owning the "Church" in various ways. We are planning our usual Christmas Day dinner and lots of these "new" friends are coming to help, or in some cases making donations. I am really looking forward to Christmas day because so many of the people working with us will be 'members' of the Space2B community, and we get on so well. There is an openness, freedom and relaxedness not often found in a bunch of long standing church-going "Christians". (Though I need to say I have a lot of love for my usual congregation.)

I am beginning to love being a part of this emerging congregation and I believe that it could be an emerging different style and shape of Church. When I was thinking of a new and different job we began to ask would we continue to attend this Church on Sunday? We were tending to say, well no, maybe not. We would identify with this mid week congregation more and maybe adding some worship element in there would suffice. Well that didn't happen but it raised the question, "When does 'Church' happen?"

Anyway, looking forward to celebrating Christmas with these loving friends.

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The Blog's title

I am a Workplace Chaplain to the NZ fireservice.

At the firestation every time one man sees me he yells, "Here comes JC's helper!". I guess I am happy to be called just that... "Jesus' helper". I am a follower of Jesus.
A a quote from Dave Andrews in his book, "Not Religion but Love".
"Being a devotee of Jesus is not a matter of subscribing to a certain set of dogmas, obeying rules and regulations, and getting others to subordinate themselves to them.

The essence of being a devotee of Jesus is to live in sympathy with God as Jesus did; feeling the throb of God's heartbeat, and teaching our hearts to learn to beat in sync with the love that sustains the universe.

It means developing our capacity to sense intuitively what causes love pleasure, and what causes love pain, and doing everything we can to enhance the pleasure, and diminish the pain."

I love this charter.

The Charter for Compassion

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.