Were it not for the needed dissent ; or even , because of it, there is what Jim Wallis talks about: “It’s one thing to say No, but even better to have an alternative”. If there were a host of Churches stirring up their members to stnad up for their faith and say no to war, there is still the call to BE an alternative. To be involved in creating and supporting those alternatives.

I see that there are Churches who do not join in the nationalistic fervor; and a smaller number who actively voice that dissent. But even at that point, there remains the matter of being the kind of community that can sustain an energized and committed community that is dedicated to reconciliation and peace not only in protest but in alternative actions to address the world at the point of need. There is still no communal structure to Churches to sustain mission. People are not being heard, and not being enabled by their Churches to discover and implement their call. No place to use their gifts.

I have written several times about the Church of the Saviour in Washinton DC, and how their “Journey Inward, Journey Outward” ecclesiology has driven their mission for Christ since 1947 when they were founded. The idea that this is a community charged with the call to be Christ and proclaim Christ and do this at the point hwere the world’s need meets the Kingdom of God, and to nurture and sustain its body of members in that endeavor; this is where the Church so often falls flat. It has become SUCH a PROGRAM. It is an EVENT rather than a life. It is less a shared celebration and more a solitary “reflection time”, and people find themselves disoconnected.

Just seeing this long road ahead, and that all these years have gone by and I still find myself looking down that same long road feeling no closer to wherever, that in itself is tiring, and deflating. But the fact that I write this is some indication that perhaps this will, at the least, help me articulate it and stay with it, and at best, make a connection to someone who might find something for their own journey, or to discover that there may be something in common and sense that maybe my call is not something solitary. My call has somethgn to do with integrating a local, face to face (ftf) community of Christ, with some online “extensions” to the ftf community, so that our story could be told, and through that, the Jesus story for our time, and for our place. But the commitment to a life together as a Christian community, in a serious and accountable way, as if this community and this call “means something” and has priority and importance such that our lives will never be the same. I long for this Church; for this community, who se aim is to particpate in the Kingdom, and find our place in it.