Missional Church Convocation 2012
July 26-28, 2012
Presentation Themes
“And they sang a new song” (Rev. 5:9): The Formative Power of Worship. In this session we will explore what it means to be shaped – body, mind, and spirit – by what we do in the worshiping assembly. Resisting the idea that worship is “useful” (its only purpose is to give glory to God), we’ll look at how prayer and preaching, song and sacrament – indeed all that we do when we gather as Christ’s body – make of us a people empowered and commissioned to participate in God’s mission in the world.
“Therefore let us be thankful” (Heb. 12:28): Communities of Gratitude and Generosity. Much of popular culture (and pop theology) would have us believe that gratitude and generosity are personal attributes that can make us happier, healthier individuals. While not discounting the “therapeutic” value of such habits, we will go deeper into an exploration of worship’s capacity to engender gratitude and generosity communally – to make these virtues constitutive of our way of living God’s mission in the world.
“O Taste and See” (Ps. 34:8): Consumption and Overconsumption at Tables of Plenty. For all that Eucharistic fellowship means and for all that it requires of those who share in it, there is this fundamental imperative: We are to nourish and care for our own bodies and the bodies of others. In light of this we’ll consider how it is that all our sharing of food (and our withholding or wasting of it), our complicity with unjust food systems, and, perhaps most unsettling, all our eating (and overeating) are implicated in our participation in the simple meal of bread and wine at the table of the Lord.
“I urge you as aliens and exiles” (1 Peter 2:11): Worship in a Foreign Land. What does it mean to worship a strange God (“love your enemies”; “sell all you have”) in a strange land (“for you were aliens in Egypt”)? How are Christians in America a people in exile? Our concluding session will examine how the church’s worship prepares us to engage the culture around us: to recognize powers and principalities; to side with the strangers in our midst. The radical, embodied, cruciform witness we offer is one that does not shun or denounce or ridicule but which adheres to the missional impulse: to love the world as God so loves it.
