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Written by Jack Haberer, Outlook editor
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Monday, 20 September 2010 15:52 |
It began with a funeral. About 200 conferees gathered at the Montreat Conference Center in western North Carolina on August 11 for the second Church Unbound conference anticipating a lift-the-roof, knock-your-socks-off, four days of spiritual inspiration, collegial fellowship, and skills re-tooling.
Instead, they were welcomed to a funeral.
Worship leaders Liz Kaznak and Jud Hendricks, both pastors from Louisville, Ky., explained that it was time to bury the church — the church we have known. Like Lazarus, the church can be unbound only after it gets resurrected. And it can be resurrected only after it dies. So a black cave on the stage awaited the presentation of conferees’ burial of the dead church, the “entity” that had wounded them, had killed their hopes, had transacted and promoted death. The cave also invited attendees to present their fears, such as the fear of “all things new,” and the fear of losing one’s privileges or confronting one’s prejudices, that would need to die and be buried there.
Through the next three days, the conferees did engage lift-the-roof, knock-your-socks-off spiritual inspiration, collegial inspiration, and skills re-tooling. Conference preachers Nelson Johnson, Margaret Aymer, and Carol Howard Merritt, and Bible study lecturer Eugene Eung-Chun Park, all pointed from death to resurrection. A dozen-plus workshops provided training for leaders to take the lead.
Most especially Brian McLaren, the conference’s twice-daily plenary speaker, pointed conferees to the vision of a resurrected, truly unbound church that’s ready to burst out of the cave that has sheltered its past, life-snuffing existence (see interview to follow).
The conference — co-sponsored by The Presbyterian Outlook, the Cross-Cultural Alliance of Ministries and the host Montreat Conference Center — took participants on a personal journey through death to life. The metaphorical cave itself morphed daily, finally becoming a tunnel in the closing worship service through which worshipers passed — saying goodbye to their past life and embracing the new — en route to receiving the Lord’s Supper.
Matthew Rich, a Presbyterian Outlook Foundation board member and member of the conference planning team reflected on the significance of the event in his following Sunday’s sermon.
… if we truly believe that in Christ’s resurrection a new age has begun, if we believe that Christ has called forth his church to be a demonstration, an outpost of this new age in the midst of the old, and if we ourselves have been raised in Christ, not someday, but today like Lazarus, then God is calling us to be the church unbound. Yes, God is calling the church to be unbound as a gospel force of love, grace, and resurrection unleashed in the world. Yes, God is calling the church to be unbound by joining with partners from across the globe to show the world a new and better way.
“But,” he clarified, “before there can be resurrection, there must be death. Before there can be unbinding, there must be a response to the call ‘Come Out!’”
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