Hi, everyone. Michael Flake (Lake Forest’s Director of Mission) here. I want to make sure that the Purple Pastor blog does not gather too much dust during the Purple Pastor’s much-deserved vacation so I submit this guest blog for your consideration, edification, dismissal, etc.
At Lake Forest we’re in the midst of our Missio Dei (Latin for Mission of God) series, exploring and being formed by 2 Corinthians 5:17-20. This past week, after noting that those in Christ are ministers of reconciliation with a message of reconciliation, we examined what it means to be a minister of reconciliation. What we saw, based on the Parable of the Merciful Neighbor (formerly the Parable of the Good Samaritan), is that ministers of reconciliation live in long-term relationship with vulnerable people. Being a minister is not a special calling given to a select few—everyone who follows Christ is a minister. Period. So let me extend this point in a particular way.
A community of people following Christ (occasionally called a church by old fuddy-duddies), although it may have a building or budget, is primarily a relational structure. Sometimes the structure is more organic, sometimes more hierarchical, but the structure is nonetheless a relational one. A church’s mission work refers to the work it does outside of its relational structure/web, i.e. to the ways those in the web connect to and care for those outside of the web. But there are also a lot of inside-the-web things that happen regularly at any church, and they are generally important things. Mission leaders, at our best, love and value the inside-the-web stuff while constantly reminding everyone that we must be deeply and regularly engaged in outside-the-web stuff.
But a Christ follower is a minister of reconciliation all the time—not just when engaging those outside the web. So, I’ve been thinking: are there people who, in the midst of their inside-the-web activities, offer a great example of what it looks like to be a minister of reconciliation? Are there people who live in long-term relationship with vulnerable people within Lake Forest’s relational structure?
I could point to a number of examples but am really struck that those who regularly serve our teenagers and children at Lake Forest are being ministers of reconciliation to those inside the web. A lot of anecdotal and scientific evidence shows how formative and fragile teenage and childhood years are. They are in a vulnerable situation, and Jesus repeatedly spoke of the importance of caring for those who are not yet adults. It is my hope (and goal) that children and teenagers inside our web would engage regularly and deeply with vulnerable people outside of the web. Nonetheless, I want to lift up those who regularly care for children and teenagers as offering a clear picture of what ministers of reconciliation look like.
In the end, we cannot be content only being ministers of reconciliation inside the relational structure of our church. At the end of the Parable of the Merciful Neighbor, Jesus tells us to GO (not STAY) and do likewise. So our identity as ministers drives us outside of the web. But it’s an identity that also drives how we act inside the web, and I hope that we can celebrate the ways that we and others in our web already live their identity as ministers.
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