January 28 — The congregation is the basic locale for telling and celebrating the Christian story. Here is the place where, in season and out, the Word is preached and the sacraments administered, and by the grace of God, rightly so. For all its manifest flaws, this assembly is the basic bearer of the promises of God to this people of God. — Gabriel Fackre, “The Congregation and the Unity of the Church”
January 29 — The church is God’s institution; it makes us, we do not make it. — Ellen Charry, “Sacramental Ecclesiology”
(The church is the body of Christ in and through which God makes, molds, and shapes us for God’s glory and our good. By the grace of God, we are [trans]formed and renewed by the Word and Spirit of Christ proclaimed in and through the church. –Rex Espiritu)
…the center of the [emerging/emergent theological] movement is about [missional] ecclesiology not epistemology. …the emerging [missional] church movement …is a definite threat to [what has been the] traditional [praxis of] evangelical ecclesiology. The central element of this missional praxis is that the emerging movement is not attractional in its model of the church but is instead missional: that is, it does not invite people to church but instead wanders into the world as the church. It asks its community “How can we help you?” instead of knocking on doors to increase membership. In other words, it becomes a community with open windows and open doors and sees Sunday morning as the opportunity to prepare for a week of service to the community, asking not how many are attending the services but what redemptive traits are we seeing in our community. It wants to embody a life that is other-oriented rather than self-oriented, that is community-directed rather than church-oriented. –“What is the Emerging Church?” (p. 7, 9-10, 21) by Scot McKnight, delivered during a conference in October 26-27, 2006 at Westminster Theological Seminary
