It's August. These are the live issues of faith we are wrestling with in our emerging congregation.
We are wrestling with words, and the meaning behind those words. Trying to decide about this thing called religion, if it is really what we wanted to pursue, what led us here anyway? Aren't we all, always, wondering?
Words like: Covenant. Prayer. Church. Religion. Why must we use these words?
We are wrestling with authority. Who gets authority and by what process? How are things decided, and where do we turn when we can't decide which way will work? What is the role of the minister - in the church, in my life?
We are wrestling with community. Even the best and most patient of us wish that we could banish one or two other of us. We'd like to pick and choose who we hang out with, who we get to do the work with, and we wonder why we keep getting tangled up with the same people who do nothing but push our buttons.
We are wrestling with purpose. We wonder if it matters what our outcome will be if along the way we push each other away, living as we do in a flight or fight pattern. We are considering the possibility that we can be about two things, those two things so perfectly aspired to in the Cambridge Platform: worship of that which is most worthy (and all that comes as a responsibility in that worship) and mutual edification (a learning community).
Most of all, we are wrestling with wrestling. We are testing to see what it would mean not to appease everyone, to let things stay somewhat unsettled, to remain in dialogue, to consider this healthy soil of growth, of personal and societal transformation. We are seeing if we mean it - this whole transformation business.
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