We live in an age where efforts at Spiritual Formation are often individual-centered. Paul’s letters, as well as Dr. Thomson’s book and video remarks, paint a picture of Paul that is one of a church planter and leader who is focused on a corporate body that is transformed and united for Christ. Paul wrote, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him” (2 Corinthians 11:2). “Paul does not envision blameless individuals, but a community transformed by God.”[1] Dr. Thompson writes,
Our reading of the Pauline Letters, with their constant focus on the ethical transformation of communities, leads to a reaffirmation of the definition of ministry offered in the opening chapter: ministry is participation in God’s work of transforming the community of faith until it is “blameless” at the coming of Christ. This definition assumes a corporate narrative in which the community is unfinished business, standing between its beginning at baptism and its completion at the end. Those who are conformed to the image of the crucified one in selflessness and devotion to others will be transformed into the image of the risen one. The community that has shared the fate of Jesus, dying to its own self-interests, is empowered by God to do God’s will. Thus Paul’s pastoral ambition, as he states consistently in his letters, is community formation. Although ministry is concerned with the troubled individual, as the contemporary literature on pastoral care makes abundantly clear, the primary focus for Paul’s ministry is the formation of communities that will be his boast at the end.[2]
As I have gone through this course, the ecological view of the Church that we see in 1 Corinthians has become something that I believe will have an organizing impact on the way I do future ministry. As Lowe & Lowe have shown in their work, these same life-giving ecological connections and interactions can be created through ecological online networks.[3] In line with that, I plan to employ a hybrid structure that uses online technologies to supplement our embodied fellowship. We will also help each individual (and our organization) tell their life story (the story of God’s work in their life) to help build understanding and trust within our community. We will be a community that uses electronic and social media (like podcasts, YouTube videos, Moodle courses, etc.) to dispense teaching and preaching. We will strengthen and equip families to be growing spiritually together. We may provide and emphasize options for regularly reading the word of God within families and individuals at home. We will then regularly come together in embodied fellowship every other week to spend about 2 hours eating the Lord’s Supper, which will be a real meal. In the intervening weeks that we don’t meet for the Lord’s Supper, we will encourage and commit ourselves to do activities with each other to help each other grow. The small churches will have individuals divided into core groups of 3-4 people of the same sex that regularly connect to support and hold each other accountable for continuous growth in their work life, spiritual life, financial lives, and all the dimensions of the human being. As such, we will not only design connectivity between our believers but will encourage and monitor those connections for the flow of life-giving interactions that strengthen the individuals but more than that, build the local community into a bride that we might present to Christ “as a pure virgin to him” (2 Corinthians 11:2).
Footnotes
[1] James W. Thompson, Pastoral Ministry according to Paul: A Biblical Vision (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), https://app.wordsearchbible.lifeway.com/reader, 124.
[3] Stephen D. Lowe and Mary E. Lowe, Ecologies of Faith in a Digital Age: Spiritual Growth through Online Education (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2018), WordSearch, chapters 9, 10, 11
Bibliography
Thompson, James W. Pastoral Ministry according to Paul: A Biblical Vision. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006. https://app.wordsearchbible.lifeway.com/reader.
Lowe, Stephen D., and Mary E. Lowe. Ecologies of Faith in a Digital Age: Spiritual Growth through Online Education. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2018. WordSearch.
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