Thursday, September 13, 2007

Talking with students who are working in ecclesiastic settings (churches, chaplaincies, schools) about what it means for the church to be the church has become(at least for now) an exercise in becoming aware of assumptions and what they mean as a means to articulating a theology of the Church. A question about church growth leads us to ask whether we expect that the church ought to grow. If so, why? If not, why not? A question about whether introducing an additional service on a Sunday morning will serve to divide the community leads to questions about how we are called to unity and whether there are a number of ways in which that unity can be experienced. This will be an interesting way into ecclesiology or the doctrine of the church.