a quote

this morning i was preaching at st marys which i do about three times a year. the current series is on passages that changed your life. i chose matthew 6:19-34 with the text seek first the kingdom. as part of it i dug out this quote from howard snyder's book liberating the church which is still a great quote after all these years...

The church gets in trouble whenever it thinks its in the church business rather than the Kingdom business. In the church business people are concerned with church activities, religious behaviour and spiritual things. In the Kingdom business people are concerned with Kingdom activities, all human behaviour and everything God has made, visible and invisible. Kingdom people see human affairs as saturated with spiritual meaning and Kingdom significance.
Kingdom people seek first the Kingdom of God and its justice; church people often put church work above concerns of justice, mercy and truth. Church people often think about how to get people into church; Kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church; Kingdom people work to see the church chnage the world.
When Christians put the church ahead of the Kingdom they settle for the status quo and their own kind of people. When they catch a vision of the Kingdom of God their sights shift to the poor, the orphan, the widow, the refugee 'the wretched of the earth' and to God's future. They see the life and work of the church from the perspective of the Kingdom.
If the church has one great need it is this: to be set free for the Kingdom of God, to be liberated from itself as it has become in order to be itself as God intends...

Comments

[Darren Goddard]

i'm preaching next sunday at my church on how to 'be' church as opposed to 'do' church. i found the quote from snyder very challenging and uplifting and will allow it to percolate around my thinking. i've only got a week and i'm a desparately slow reader but i'm going to try and lay hands on the book, so to speak.

[Mark Berry]

"Church people worry that the world might change the church; Kingdom people work to see the church change the world." Great quote! Thanks!

BTW I'll think of you this week when I'm sat by the Sea re-reading Ryan and Eddie

[Phil]

hey, very powerful - thanks. have you read George Barna's "Revolution" book?

[Rich Kirkpatrick]

Reform is always in motion due to man's attempt to smash the church in his box. But, it is Reform we need, not revolution like Barna and others have described.

[Paul Fromont]

Great quote. Thanks for the reminder Jonny.

[Derek]

inspirational

[hopefulamphibian]

Thanks Jonny - wonderful timing, for me, reading that quote this morning.

[Lynda]

Thanks Jonny. Very apt in light of recent conversations. Came at a great time.

[Ben]

Good stuff Jonny! We need to live the new indentity, just dare to go for it. The best way to get there, is to just go ourselves, and be examples.

[Ross Garner]

Hi Jonny

Years ago my eyes were opened to the message of the Kingdom by a book called "The upside down Kingdom" by Donald Kraybill. I have not been comfortable with institutional church ever since.

[themerryrose]

Jonny, so true. Thanks for the reminder.