The
Church is in the PITS, thus needs a TIPS
Rev. Jeric C. Cortado, July 9, 2019, Sarum College, Salisbury, England
Methodism
is a movement of renewal, a renewing force within the Church of England,
committed to prove in experience what the church professed in doctrine. John Wesley tried to renew the Church to its original
purposes of existence passionately lives out the transformative apostolic traditions and the great commission of
Jesus Christ, thus incarnate the love
of God, made practical the professed
doctrines and mission of the Church, in solidarity
with the poor, oppressed, marginalized, exploited, deprived but struggling
people towards the fullness of life. The Church should be freed from privatized leadership and program
components, wherein the leadership and administrative responsibilities in all
the aspects of the Church confined only to the ordained and the lay people are
merely spectators. Preserving the fixed rules and hierarchy of authority and
forget the distinctive being and calling of the Church. It should be freed from
individualism and institutional, that
being a Christian is an individual matter and is not essentially bound
to life with others, and imitating the organizational structures and management
of profitable corporations confined in the bureaucratic pressures. Thus, the
Church consciously or unconsciously hides the hunger of the people for
companionship and community, overlooked the status of the body and the spirit
of the people, and narrowed with the fixed rules and hierarchy of authority. The Church should be freed from being traditional, in a sense that the Church
lost from its purpose of existence and from its understanding of the tradition.
The apostolic tradition and ministry passed on to the Church is to be contextual
in doing the ministry. What the Church inherited from our fore-parents of faith
was how to become proactive of the realities of the times, and how to live out
faith in our context. Moreover, the Church should be redeemed from being separated from the people by having a
big gap between the lay people and the clergy. Though, the authority to preside
the sacraments is only for the clergy but to become sacramental is for
everybody’s calling either clergy or lay. In our understanding, sacraments are
collective celebration of clergy and lay making the grace of God visible to
them, through them, and with them in the unity of the Spirit of God poured out
upon them that made them empowered to preach good news to the poor,
enlightenment, freedom and liberation, provide sanctuary, and the realization
of the fullness of life. The Church should be sacrament of God’s grace and
God’s liberating acts.
As
pointed out by Rev. Dr. Paul W. Chilcote[1]
about John Wesley’s assessments, that the Church is in the PITS (P.I.T.S) or in
the depths of despair. So, the Church needs to be renewed in the Spirit of God,
thus, needs TIPS (T.I.P.S) or reminders, guidance or instructions for renewal
living in the power of God’s love for a transformed and transforming
spirituality. And in the emergence and the development of the Methodist
Societies, the TIPS made Methodism a phenomenal faith community throughout the
world, that claimed by John Wesley as his parish.
[1] Rev. Dr. Paul W. Chilcote is the Director of the United Methodist
Studies and Professor of the Asbury Theological Seminary, USA.
No comments:
Post a Comment