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This month: Maggie Dawn, Brian Eno, Stanley Hauerwas and Sam Wells. Plus setting up a community choir, tips for your business plans, nurturing volunteers, running church cafés and navigating change in the charity world. Plus New Members and HeartEdge events.
That meant they needed to begin to rethink the central purpose of church. It could no longer be principally a mechanism for delivering people from the flesh of this world to the spirit of the next. It maybe had a validity of its own. And worldly existence perhaps was not simply to be spent evading the earthly realities around us; maybe it might be about celebrating creation, enjoying culture, sharing in flourishing life.
But the structures of our church have lagged behind a bit. We still take people out of the world for an intense hour or two a week to be transported to heaven and thus to be restored or fuelled or inspired to face the challenges of our lives. But our theology has moved from (mostly) screwing up our eyes to glimpse the significance of what Christ did long ago, to (increasingly) keeping alert to perceive where the Holy Spirit is making Christ present today.
HeartEdge is a network of kingdom churches – communities hearing a call to foster, embody, model and advance the gifts the Spirit brings, of forgiveness, reconciliation, healing and resurrection. We want to have the humility to learn from those who don’t call themselves church but nonetheless show Christ’s face to us, and grow by encounter with the least, the last and the lost, in whom Christ promised to be made known. We’re not trying to make the world more like us; we’re wanting to reflect the generosity, grace and glory of God – and to receive the gifts God sends us in the unexpected people who turn out to populate God’s kingdom.
HeartEdge is an ecumenical network of churches initiated by St Martin-in-the-Fields.
Late Late Service - Resurrection Day.
Final Thoughts: “Making Christ Present Today…”
Round about 1860 something important in the churches started to change. People started to stop believing in hell. It was mostly on moral grounds – they ‘did the math’ and couldn’t work out how even terrible sins on earth could merit eternal roasting in hell. Ten million years, maybe: but ten million is nowhere near eternity.
That meant they needed to begin to rethink the central purpose of church. It could no longer be principally a mechanism for delivering people from the flesh of this world to the spirit of the next. It maybe had a validity of its own. And worldly existence perhaps was not simply to be spent evading the earthly realities around us; maybe it might be about celebrating creation, enjoying culture, sharing in flourishing life.
But the structures of our church have lagged behind a bit. We still take people out of the world for an intense hour or two a week to be transported to heaven and thus to be restored or fuelled or inspired to face the challenges of our lives. But our theology has moved from (mostly) screwing up our eyes to glimpse the significance of what Christ did long ago, to (increasingly) keeping alert to perceive where the Holy Spirit is making Christ present today.
HeartEdge is a network of kingdom churches – communities hearing a call to foster, embody, model and advance the gifts the Spirit brings, of forgiveness, reconciliation, healing and resurrection. We want to have the humility to learn from those who don’t call themselves church but nonetheless show Christ’s face to us, and grow by encounter with the least, the last and the lost, in whom Christ promised to be made known. We’re not trying to make the world more like us; we’re wanting to reflect the generosity, grace and glory of God – and to receive the gifts God sends us in the unexpected people who turn out to populate God’s kingdom.
Rev’d Dr Sam Wells
HeartEdge is an ecumenical network of churches initiated by St Martin-in-the-Fields.
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