Paul writes – Following on from Thursday’s post in which I talked about the reality that many who struggle with churches (as they are) and thus with belonging etc, “like Israel in the wilderness discover that this marginal experience is often (for them) a needful part of a change or growth cycle, one that Walter Brueggemann names as: orientation, disorientation and new orientation. While (to my mind) Alan Roxburgh talks about it in terms of: stability, discontinuity, Disembedding, transition, and re-formation.” I said that this “marginal experience [provides] a space in which to grapple with core questions about church and its purpose.”
Len Hjalmarson helpfully picks up “six points of connection between the circumstance of exile and scriptural resources” from Walter Brueggemann’s excellent book Cadences of Home. Again, I think these are insightful and relevant to the experience and journey of those struggling with church.
1. Exiles must grieve their loss and express their resentful sadness about what was and now is not and never will be again… Churches must be communities of honest sadness, naming the losses. The obvious resource…is Lamentations.
2. Exile is an act of being orphaned [where] there is no sure home. I suggest the term rootlessness. Exiles need to take with them old habits, old customs, old memories, [and] old photographs. The scriptural resources… are the genealogies that have seemed so boring. Two easy access points are (a) the Matthean genealogy… (b) The recital in Hebrews 11 of all our family “by faith.”
You can read Len’s full post, and the rest of the six points here. Thanks Len.
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