The previous three posts concerning some of those matters involving “activism” and “ecclesiology” all brought to a head by my simultaneous reading of Stanley Hauerwas, James KA Smith, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, and Jim Wallis (a little earlier this year, in God’s Politics) are all on my radar because of the resonation I have felt , especially over the past 9-11 months, with the ideas and notions of church and our relating to the world. I love so much of what each of these has to say to us. I do not register 100% agreement with any of them, but they all place before me the importance of and the nature of what the church is to in the world and with the world, or in spite of the world. I sense a deep congruency with all of these men concerning the way that the Kingdom of God as proclaimed by Jesus is central to what they write, say , and do.

It seems that in the Church of the Saviour, I have what amounts to as close to a “model” of what lkiving as a colony, as Resident Aliens, is all about. They seem to embody in and of themselves an an affirmation of the emphases of each of the writers with which I have been conversing in my heart over the past year, and more recently, in the past 4 months or so. My sense of desperation about not having found anything that seems to promise some sort of serious effort to live faitfully as a community is sometimes overwhelming. At those times I tend to turn off, and retreat into work or entertainment. But I can nnever do that for long (although I see now that I’ve developed this pattern over the past 30 years, since I first encountered the people and the stories of those people that make up The Church of the Saviour.

It seems as if the only way to do such a thng is to start from scratch. It doesn’t seem that such a church can come into being from out of an existing institiutionor community , with its own set of expectations and understandings. I consider that and I am utterly floored by how incapable I see myself in rallying such a community. I fear my external self has become too protective and dependent upon approval to properly lead. What I heard Stanley Hauerwas say in a response to a question during his talk at Baylor stuck with me. He said that it is an opportunity for the church in our age to show the world what true friendship is all about. It is wrapped up in this idea that a particular people , at a particular time, is called to be an outpost of the Kingdom of God, and that this requires a commitment ot a life that is not what the world offers anywhere. I have spoken of my intention to travel to D.C. and seek out some people so formed by such an exemplary alternative life (in the Church of the Saviour, and perhaps seek out some friends who live there and long ago involved me in their own exploration of the kind of life The Church of the Saviour was suggesting and demonstrating was doable, only as a people dependent upon God).

So plans are still being explored as to when and how and via what route.