On the church (from Buderhof's Daily Dig)

The biblical notion of church, the “ekklesia,” however, is far more radical. It is a community that is called out, called together and called forth—a community in which the presence of the risen Christ transforms existence itself. Church is the locus of Christ’s ongoing work of reconciliation and redemption, where people exhibit a new way of living together as an expression of their new life in Christ. Church is not about what gets proclaimed by a preacher or taught by an instructor. It’s not just songs, sacraments and ceremonies. The church is what gets lived out in daily life by a people who bind themselves together to live for God’s kingdom of unity, justice and peace.

Contrary to popular wisdom, the first words about the Christian life are not about what we as individuals can experience, but about the kind of society God intends. The gospel, or good news, is that in Christ, God’s coming kingdom is breaking into the here and now—in the depths of the believer’s heart, but also in the world itself. This kingdom encompasses economic, material, psychological, political, social and spiritual existence.

The gospel is not that there is still more to come in the future. It’s not about going to heaven when we die, or about being forgiven now and awaiting freedom later. It’s not about experiencing the sacred in the midst of the secular. Neither is it a new teaching or a new moral code. It is the promised “power of God for salvation” (Romans 1:16)—a power that frees us from all that opposes God and his will and all that alienates us from ourselves and each other. This power frees us to live according God’s original plan, where selfless sharing, justice, mutuality, respect, trust, forgiveness and joyful community become realized. As Norman Kraus puts it, “The gospel message is that promise is now becoming reality. The gospel message—new life—and the gospel medium—a new people—are simultaneously one.”