CHRIS OCKEN
10:12-13). And really, only a true sense of vocation could carry any sane person through a Saturday night lock-in with several dozen humid teenagers followed by a full Sunday of worship, teaching and fellowship events.
A missionary church Now, more than any time since the first Pentecost, the church needs gifted and motivated people to serve in public ministry and vital congrega- tions that understand themselves to be mission stations. The church and the world we grew up in no longer exist. The church no longer has a privileged place in this culture. We have entered the post- Constantinian, if not post-
22 The Lutheran •
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Christendom era. In our cities, in our neighborhoods, even in our families there are people who don’t even know they need to know Jesus. Or the Jesus they think they know is not the Jesus they need to know—the crucified Lord who, even in his glory, bears the marks of the nails. We have to be a missionary church once again. As Lutherans we are at a slight disadvantage —we aren’t naturals at telling people our faith stories and we don’t have a sound-bite theology. Grace presumes a fallen creation, the theology of the cross is a scandal to a culture of glory, being members one of another as the body of Christ is an insult to the cult of the individual. This isn’t perky, upbeat and happy. Neither was Jesus’ crucifixion, but it was an
act of indescribable beauty that brings true and lasting joy.
Ultimately the call process is about just that—pastor and people together in worship of the crucified Lord, and in service to the world for whom the Lord was crucified. We might wish things were dif- ferent or that some other generation would have to face this challenge, but it’s not up to us. God in God’s inscru- table wisdom chose us—rostered leaders and congregations serving at this time and in this mission field—to tend and spread the gospel. So let’s get over ourselves, let’s stop being shy. Who knows, vital, harmonious congregations unleashing newly unin- hibited Lutherans might be our best evangelism strategy yet. M
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