What if social changes are opportunities to embrace fuller discipleship, to reform our beliefs and practices, to dig deeper into the stories that shape us and our society, to see God’s presence within expressions of doubt and questioning, and to practice a distinct social ethic? What if these are opportunities to cultivate a distinct community with a distinct love and ethic and grace and holiness and reconciliation and hope and welcome? What if these are opportunities to join with God in God’s mission, to live full and joyful lives, to listen to the hopes and longings of others, to embrace fresh confidence in the gospel, to open our hearts and homes and lands and families, and to invite the Spirit to convert its church?
The church remembers, tells, and embodies the story of Jesus Christ. It shows the world what God calls the world to be. The church does not withdraw from the world. The church does not stand in self-righteous judgment on the world. Instead, the church serves Jesus and his world. Hauerwas writes, “The church can never abandon the world to the hopelessness deriving from its rejection of God, but must be a people with a hope sufficiently fervid to sustain the world as well as itself.” The church, sure of its unique identity, must engage fully with the world—showing the world what God destines it to be.
Grace Ji-Sun Kim & Graham Hill, “Healing Our Broken Humanity”
