26 Jun Getting Involved in the City

Question:

How should the church interact with the surrounding world and community?

Two main images have come to be helpful for me, and if you have ever wondered:

How can I make a difference in the world? or

Why does this church do the things it does?

If so, read on! (If not, read on, too!) 🙂

Theologians and missiologists have come up with two main phrases to describe how the people of God, in the Bible, interacted with the world: centripetal movement and centrifugal movement (let me explain!):

1. Centripetal movement describes movement towards the center.

It describes for the most part, how Israel functioned in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. God called Israel to be a singular community focused on the worship of Him and justice for its members. In this way, huddled together around the Temple and the Torah, in the middle of a polytheistic and pluralistic world, they would shine as a singular light for the One True God.

And that was a good thing, in that time. But—by the time we get to the New Testament, we see the intended “movement” of the people of God has clearly changed to something else:

2. Centrifugal movement (you probably know what this one means) describes movement away from the center.

This is clearly the kind of movement that not only has Jesus called us to (“Go into all the world” he says in Matthew 28), but the kind of movement that the early church undertook from its beginning. The early church “went into” new nations, new places and crossed ethnic and national boundaries into order to obey Jesus’ command to be a city on a hill, and salt and light in culture.

In other words, centrifugal movement ought to describe, over time, how the church of Jesus thinks and what the church of Jesus looks like.

BUT! Now, the question goes, how do we do that?

Into what areas do we go and are we “sent”?

Are there certain areas which are off-limits in principle to the Christian, such as politics or the military?

Prominent Christian ethicists have wrestled with these questions for many years, but one Christian thinker that has impacted me is someone named John Stackhouse, whose title for his approach for Christian involvement sums up, nicely, the approach towards civic involvement that Mosaic has taken for quite some time.

His book is called: Making the Best of It.

Why should we get involved? We’re making the best of it.

What do I do in this situation? We are to make the best of it.

What if I fall short? You make the best of it.

Why do our best efforts fall short? Well, the short answer is sin, but we are still called to make the best of it.

This is a complex situation. What should I do? Under the Lordship of Jesus, you make the best of it.

In other words, you do what is right, for the right reason, as far as you can tell, and you trust God for the results. We “see through a glass darkly” and must lean on the Holy Scriptures, our community and the Holy Spirit to find a path through, and this has been the story of the church through the generations.

Which brings me to this: I want to continue to encourage not only this church corporately, but us as individuals to get involved in society when and where you can, even when it gets sticky, and let me give you one example:

Some of you may know Vincent Harding, a member in good standing for 8 years here at Mosaic. Vincent is an attorney and a real estate agent, has served in various capacities at Mosaic for years, and his wife Meagan Harding is a ministry director within TGA.

Vincent also feels a call to the political world, has served the Central Texas community faithfully for many years, and so he is running for public office—specifically for a seat on the Austin City Council, which is a non-partisan position that comes open this fall.

I am happy to personally support him in his efforts, and am listed as a supporter of his on his website.

Vincent, like all of us, has a political leaning, and he also has political connections in a certain party, which you may or may not agree with or like. What is beautiful about our church is that our primary means of identity, and therefore relationship, is not centered around our political affiliation, but around the person of Jesus and His Gospel.

And to be clear, this church, except in some unforeseen situation which we cannot possibly imagine now, will never endorse a political party. If we do, we lose our ability to speak into the political world as pastors and elders called of God to hold up our culture to the light of the Gospel, and commend it where it agrees, and critique it where it falls short. We have no intention of supporting a specific party at any time.

So, decision to support Vincent in this run is easier because this position is non-partisan in nature, and again, because I know him and his character.

Will I agree with all of Vince’s decisions and policies (assuming he wins)? It’s unlikely. Does this mean he speaks for Mosaic Church? Not at all.

And yet, if there are no people of integrity, courage and diplomacy—like Vince, and maybe, hopefully, YOU—who are willing to get involved in places of politics, there will be no salt and light in this area of culture.

You may ask, does our government really need Christian people involved?

Just ask the nation of England: William Wilberforce campaigned tirelessly to end the slave trade there, based out of his Christian convictions. Imagine if that nation had not had him involved! Millions of lives are the better for his involvement.

You may say, well, both parties are broken and fallen.

True, but the Bible is full of people who served in fallen parties and governments: Joseph, Esther, Daniel, and “those in Caesar’s household” come to mind. They worked for pagan rulers, non-Christian kings with spurious agendas. What did they do? They made the best of it.

What are the people of God to do? We should be Making the Best of It, getting involved across the political spectrum where our conscience allows.

Are you in government? Tech? Education? Food? An entrepreneur? The Arts? Athletics? Retail? A homemaker? Something else amazing?

How are you seeking to be sent in some way?

The point is, the people of God are not to be permanently huddled in the center, but are to be scattered across the city, laboring daily to “repair the breach” (Isaiah 58), and part of the reason I mention this is that, if I were in your position, I would want to know if a member of my church were running for City Council and a position like this!

I hope you will join me in supporting one another as we get involved across the city, for the common good, to point to one Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Morgan