07.29.06

the off-ramp

Posted in ekklesia, formation at 7:32 am by len

Jason is working his way through The Great Giveaway at The Off-Ramp. He pulls out this great quote..

“The church is much more than the machinery that produces decisions for Christ. It is the social space, under his lordship where the Holy Spirit works to build up believers and equip the saints (Ephesians 4). It is the social foretaste of his reign, the place where God is taking the rest of the world. It is spatial because we are a people ‘called out’ from the world to be the ecclesia. Each church is a body of Christ, his physicality in the world, so to speak, where he is the head. And things happen here under his lordship that can happen nowhere else. The powers of his salvation are set loose in his body through the mutual participation of its members through the gifts before the watching world. It is this new society’s life that calls the world to an awareness of their lostness and their separation from God. Out of this new life, the call to a decision for Christ, to repentance from sin and new life in Christ can actually make sense to those who are lost without Christ.”

* * *

Jason also noted a great post from Kevin Miller at Out of Ur. Friends from a major publisher of Sunday school curriculum called him, researching trends in spiritual formation. After a few warm-up questions, they asked: “What would you recommend for spiritual formation in our time?”?

“The monastery,”? I said.

There was a long pause.

“You"re going to have to unpack that for us,”? they finally said.

Read more…»?

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