What Are Our Visions for the Church of Interfaith Christians?

 

Last week I told everyone the subject of this week’s message would be about our (the members of this Interfaith Christian Church) visions for what the Church should be.  I welcome all of you to respond to this message with your thoughts and feelings about what this church means to you now and what you would like to see it become in the future.  I’ll start out with my thoughts on the subject.

I was asking God where would be a good place to start and He led me to our church mission statement.  I like to start with that and expound on the different ideas we have brought to fruit there.  It took a lot of praying to get the words just right that we all could agree on the statements there.

As a church of Interfaith Christians, our goal is bring together an atmosphere of love, sharing and community, living by the example of Jesus.

Jesus Christ ministered to his disciples by bringing them into a caring community where they spent time with Jesus and with each other. In and through the relationships developed within this community, the disciples found fulfillment of their God-given needs for love, significance and belonging.  Our needs are the same today—we will grow and flourish spiritually in a church community where we find an atmosphere of unconditional love, a cause to live for and a place we can believe as ourselves and belong to.

God, who is love, created humans to receive His love and to share that love with others. Our community first and foremost must have an atmosphere of love where we can feel accepted, valued and welcomed.  Consider how Jesus created an atmosphere of love in His community of disciples. First, He genuinely and deeply loved His disciples. He then consistently communicated that love through acts of encouragement, support and comfort.  Through verbal and nonverbal affirmations, He reassured his disciples that he cared for them and would never abandon them.

As the disciples spent time with Jesus, they began to grow in their love for Him and for one another. Jesus constantly coached them in expressing this love and sent the Spirit to live within them (and within those that followed) so that their love for Him and for others would be full and lasting.  That Spirit of God is alive within us and circulating among us making this community and fellowship possible.

Our purpose is to embrace the diversity of God’s faithful as we seek to enlighten, uplift and heal.

A part of what it means to us to be an Interfaith Christian congregation is that we are encouraged to bring our own understanding and experience to our religious life and to share with others.   We respect the traditions, practices and opinions not only of other religious groups and of other times but also of each other. We must respect that each of us is engaged in a personal relationship with God and Jesus Christ which may not be the same as our own.  We do not all live the same way, value the same things, or have the same expectations of our life with God.  We must embrace our diversity by believing that each of us brings a unique perspective and experience of the divine to the group.  Our gender, race, ethnic background, sexual orientation, occupation, nationality, age, and marital status are among the many aspects of who we are that influence how we know God.

Although the differences among our individual experiences can occasionally create tension, we should seek to understand each other and embrace our disagreements rather than subscribe to a static, uniform code of belief.  It is often at our points of disagreement where we find the most proof that our faith and spiritual relationship is to a living God and within a vital, thriving community.  As a congregation that is seeking to enlighten, uplift and heal each other as well as ourselves it is important that we differentiate between God's will and human will, and seek to enact God's will.  The Body of Christ to which we all belong is a body that leaves no one out. It is here to nurture and empower all of us.

We are a diverse community drawn together by our common beliefs and by our search for truth, insight and understanding.  We have each come here because we believe there are answers here for us, if only we have the patience to go within and find them.  Our mission is to heal, uplift, motivate, enlighten and guide each other and ourselves toward the path of spiritual growth and unveiling.

We seek Truth and unite in the quest for higher values in our religious and personal lives.

The Church of Interfaith Christians should be a place where the members come for spiritual study and learning the truths Jesus Christ taught.  Like others before us, we are seeking for the way of the world, the way to live right, and the way to thrive on this earth and beyond. We acknowledge that we will not find answers to all our questions, but we continue the quest joyously for what we will find and we learn from the seeking of each other as well as we build on the foundations of the sacred texts and those who have gone before us. We unite in our quest.

I borrowed the following from the Seekers Society because it really represents what we can personally learn from our quest for higher values in an interfaith Christian environment:

From the Buddhists, we learned to seek inner peace,

From Chinese and Indian practices, we learned physical practices as a path to higher spiritual awareness,

From the Jews, we learned of justice and the drive for freedom,

From the early Christians, we learned of compassion,

From Islam, we learned of consistent, daily practice and devotion,

From the Reformation, we learned that struggle for positive change is an inevitability,

From the Friends, we learned to recognize that of God in every man and to speak truth to power,

From the Enlightenment, we learned the value of scientific method to acquire understanding of the physical world,

From the native American Indians, we learn of our enduring relationship to the earth,

From the Revolutions, we learn the importance and power of every man and the temporary nature of Kings,

From all religious spiritual pioneers, we learn the value of continuous striving,

From modern technology, we learn the power of applying knowledge,

From the warring of nation-states, we learn the horrors of applying knowledge without wisdom.

In our seeking, our goal is to acquire the knowledge and, more importantly, the wisdom to exercise our spirit's will in a way that brings a lasting society of peace, prosperity and justice to us all.

We encourage our ministers and members to seek out the Divine Spirit and explore their individual callings in their celebration of God.

To do this, as a church, we must be protective and encouraging to our ministers.  We need to provide our ministers with tools and resources to help educate, enlighten, and inform.  Our ministers need to be able to ask questions and get answers.  As Ministers of the Church of Interfaith Christians we each have our own individual ministries.  We are not a traditional church but we provide a home for our individual members’ ministries.  Our members should find plenty of stimulation for spiritual growth here. We should empower our ministers to follow their calling and do their ministries whether it be evangelism and spreading the truth, outreach and service to God and other people, publishing books and other literature, providing for life events or just helping to bring people together from various religious traditions in a shared discovery of truth. 

This should be a positive place with the emphasis on sharing a more accurate view of Jesus Christ and His teachings.  We mustn’t forget the various miracles Jesus performed and taught His disciples to do including healings, exorcisms, walking on water, turning water into wine, and even raising people, such as Lazarus, from the dead. Jesus frequently put himself in opposition to religious authorities.  He was a social reformer and preached love and faith and forgiveness.  He taught us to seek God’s will in everything we do.  In that way we can be assured of living happy and fulfilling lives.  Dr. Steadman trying to follow in Jesus’ footsteps taught the principles of understanding, tolerance and love. 

The church of course needs to do a better job taking care of record keeping.  We need to communicate better with our members.  We should provide more ministerial training as well as a multitude of ministerial resources.  We should make sure there is an avenue of prayer for all our members.  The list can go on and on.

I have deliberately stayed away from the more obvious visions of Dr. Steadman hoping that all the members will send in their own thoughts and ideas along these lines.  We will continue these discussions next week.

 

Blessings, Reverend Sharra