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The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Text: Acts 6: 5, 8
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
June 30, 1985
Transcription of the spoken sermon
The Church lives in a tension. It is always caught in the dilemma of having to find
the forms and structures that will enable it to execute its mission to the world and
having to remain open and flexible so that those very forms and structures do not
bind the Spirit and paralyze the mission. The Church will inevitably develop
tradition and must continually struggle free from that tradition in order to get on
with the mission.
Perhaps I should use traditionalism rather than tradition, for actually tradition is
a positive factor in the life of the Church. There is a living tradition - the ongoing
moving of the Faith embodied in the community of faith. Someone has said
tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the
living. Tradition rightly understood is a living, growing movement always being
expanded, modified, enlarged in the light of experience, the experience of being
in mission.
But tradition can so easily become traditionalism. Then movement ceases and the
mission is paralyzed. Thus the Church must be always vigilant, self-critical,
humble before her Lord, ready to learn new truths, gain new insight and design
new structures that will enable her in every age to be God's agent of reconciliation
in the world.
We cannot learn all we need to know about the form of the Church or the
translation of the Gospel from the New Testament. We do have, however, in Acts
and the Epistles some principles and models that can help us to find our way in
our day. Let me use the early experience of the Church - the experience clustered
around Stephen - out of which to make these very significant statements about
the Church. These principles have been lived out in our past; they must remain
our charter of freedom for the future as we seek to be God’s people – the
instrument of His purpose and grace in our day.
I want to say a word about Church structure, about Church growth, and about
theological understanding.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
My points are simple:
The form of the Church must flow from the function of the Church.
The growth of the Church must result from the care of the Church.
The theology of the Church must be shaped by the experience of the
Church.
Form follows function. Growth rises from care. Knowledge is shaped by
experience.
First of all, from the story of Stephen we can see that structure flows out of
mission; form follows function.
You know the story. That beautiful community that took shape in the wake of
Pentecost was a community of spontaneous sharing where no one considered his
possessions his own but all shared their possessions so that none were in need. It
was the true community of the Spirit and it was a beautiful sign of the presence of
the Kingdom, but it did not last long. Soon the harmony was shattered. The
Hellenist group - those who spoke Greek - complained that their widows were
discriminated against in the distribution of food. The Apostles, deeply involved in
the proclamation of the Gospel, saw the need of others to take responsibility for
the physical needs of the community and they appointed seven whose names are
listed in the sixth chapter of Acts, one of whom was Stephen. Although the name
Deacon is not used we have generally seen that appointment as initiating the
office of Deacon. However these seven were viewed, Stephen at least did not serve
at table very long because soon we find him a powerful, persuasive preacher of
the Gospel.
But let me underscore the point I am trying to make - the Apostles met a specific
crisis, a concrete historical situation with an improvisation of structure. Now, to
be sure, there was as yet no set structure. In fact, from the New Testament it is
impossible to derive a structure for the Church. Whatever form of Church
structure may be followed - Episcopal as in the Roman Church, or
Congregational, or Presbyterian as in Reformed Churches, all can find data in the
New Testament but no one system of polity arises as we have developed them in
our structure.
Indeed Edward Schillebeeckx, the Dutch Catholic New Testament scholar, has
published a book entitled, Ministry, in which he demonstrates beyond question
that the Early Church in the first centuries after Christ had a fluid form of
structure and government - a book by which he has not endeared himself with the
Vatican.
This should put us on notice that the forms and structures of the Church are
negotiable and that a constantly changing historical milieu in which we minister
will call for changing structures. Structures are negotiable. Jesus Christ remains
the same. Form must follow function.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
This may seem obvious enough. Yet how often do we not get bogged down in
structural questions? We tend to absolutize forms that arose in a given situation
to meet a specific need, freezing that form forever as though to change the
structure would compromise the Gospel.
Paul says, "Where the Spirit is there is freedom." The Spirit directed the mission
of that Early Christian community, improvising forms into order to enable the
community to function. We must live in that same freedom, determining how
best to structure our life in order most effectively to get the Gospel out.
The structure of the Church must flow out of the mission of the Church. My
mentor, Professor Hendrikus Berkhof of the Netherlands, writes in his book
Christian Faith in the chapter on the Church that the Book of Church Order must
be done in loose-leaf today. The implications of that are far-reaching. If only we
would remember that when classes and Synods convene we would save ourselves
so much energy. We would avoid painful debate and endless discussion and we
would be able to get on with the task. Otherwise we are simply playing Church
and we are no good to God or the world.
II. There is a second learning from this story that can aid us in getting the right
perspective on our calling as the People of God. It is this: Growth is the
consequence of community, a caring community.
Certainly there was strong proclamation of the Gospel in those Apostolic days
and my claim here in no way is meant to detract from that powerful proclamation
of the Lordship of Christ. But from the window Luke gives us on the life of that
early community we can see that it was indeed a community that the Spirit
created. The description of the life of the community in the second chapter is a
marvelous picture of a caring community, where no one was left out, no one's
needs neglected and where the wellbeing of the whole community was the
deepest concern of all its members.
Barnabas’ action is a case in point. He sold his estate and brought the money to
the Apostles. In that paragraph in the fourth chapter, we read,
There was not a needy person among them....
Again we read,
... The company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no
one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they
had everything in common.
Stephen and six others were appointed to see that the physical needs of the
members of the community were met. The early Church was characterized by
caring and that community life was so attractive that it drew thousands in those
exciting days following Pentecost.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
There is a great deal of talk about Church Growth in our day. At Pasadena,
California, there is an Institute on Church Growth and from that center other
leaders of the Church Growth movement have spun off. And, of course, who could
or would desire to argue against Church Growth. The great Commission still
stands and we are called to be witnesses to Jesus Christ bringing the message of
His grace to the whole world including our own neighborhoods. Yet I sense
sometimes that we get interested in Church Growth out of desperation. We see
the statistics. We know if we do not turn things around many congregations will
continue to wither and die. And so we decide to grow.
Now it is true that a church must decide to grow and without that intentionality it
is not likely that much will happen. Yet to aim at growth for growth’s sake is to
commit a fatal error. Let me suggest that we must commit ourselves to be the
People of God, a caring community reaching out in Jesus’ name to share the
compassion of God, ministering His grace with no question asked. We are called
to give our life away – literally to die that new life may spring forth.
Church growth as I find it practiced today smacks too much of institutionalism,
the preservation and perpetuation of our institutions. We get trapped into
thinking that it is the institution - be it the denomination or our local
congregation - that we must preserve when what God is asking is for a people
willing to die to pride of tradition and denomination and congregational security
and invest our lives in caring for the world.
We get so turned in on ourselves and begin to feel that in our church we are ends
in ourselves, forgetting that we are blessed of God to be a blessing to the world.
Let me suggest that the Christian Church would do well to forget its heavy focus
on evangelism and learn to love the world. We must concentrate on making our
congregational life reflect the quality of the Spirit of Jesus. When we become a
caring community the bruised and bleeding will come in seeking refuge, healing
and grace.
Harvie Conn, a professor of Mission at Westminster Theological Seminary, was
the Pre-Synod Festival speaker at Kalamazoo this year. He had spent some years
in Korea as a missionary before becoming a teacher. He told of the first year of
language study which was so frustrating because he wanted to get on with the
work but first he must master the language. After nearly a year when he was still
very insecure in the language, he could not stand it any longer. He packed a bag
and took a train to a Korean city where there was an army base. As he arrived he
walked by the base entrance where the prostitutes were lined up. A Korean came
up to him and asked if he were a Christian. He said yes and the Korean invited
him to his home. He was a Christian pastor and opened his home to him. He was
served a plate of uncooked, beaten rice for supper and then when it came time to
retire, he learned he was to sleep with the pastor’s father, an old man who had
asked him many questions. The family lived in very small quarters and he found
that Grampa’s bedroom was really a small space between two buildings with
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
walls improvised to keep out the wind. Grampa had one blanket and Harvie
simply got under the blanket with Grampa, sleeping on the ground.
Two years later he received a letter from the pastor asking him to come to the
village to baptize his father. He explained that his father had not been a believer.
When Harvie ate the simple meal with the family and spent the night in those
primitive circumstances without complaint, Grampa was impressed. He came to
believe and now wanted to be baptized by Harvie. It was not the answers he gave
in broken Korean, but the genuineness of his life, his love that penetrated the
heart of that old man.
It was the same thing with two prostitutes with whom he shared a meal. He
learned a few years later that they had become Christians because for the first
time in their lives a Christian had treated them like human beings.
It is when God’s love becomes concrete in the love with which we touch another
that one becomes open to grace. If only we could genuinely love the world, God
would handle the rest and the result would be a growing Church. Growth flows
out of care.
III. The third learning I would share from this passage is that knowledge of God
flows from experience of God. This is a word about our theology - the articulation
of what we believe about God and His revelation of Himself to us in the New
Testament.
God revealed Himself in Jesus:
... if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.
That revelation in Jesus finds expression in the New Testament.
The New Testament along with God’s revelation in Israel’s history is our
Scripture and is the authoritative record in which we hear the Word of God, the
witness inspired by the Spirit and the instrument the Spirit uses to reveal God to
us today. From the Scripture the Church draws its knowledge of the Faith and, as
that Scriptural knowledge mixes with our present experience, we seek to translate
the Gospel for our day.
The point I am seeking to make here is that there must be an ongoing encounter
with the witness of the Scripture and the contemporary culture in order that the
Gospel of God’s grace may come to expression in every age and generation in
meaningful fashion.
The Church historically has erred on two counts:
The failure of orthodoxy has been to take the biblical record and absolutize it in
every aspect - not only its witness to God’s grace and that salvation that appeared
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
in Jesus, but also the shape and form of that revelation - that is, the historical
accoutrements of that revelation. The result has been the freezing of the Word of
God in the thought forms and world and life view of the first century.
The failure of classical Liberalism has been to fail to take seriously the biblical
record as an authoritative norm by which every new expression of the Gospel
must be judged, and to determine the "truth" only through analysis of the
contemporary world with its "modern" understanding.
There are two poles of knowledge by which our expression of the Gospel must be
shaped - the biblical record and the contemporary scene. Both are important. It is
meaningless to convey biblical knowledge with no attempt to translate that
knowledge in terms of what we have learned in the explosion of knowledge in the
modern world. It is equally meaningless to master the latest of scientific
knowledge and cultural wisdom and fail to bring it into confrontation with the
biblical word.
The proclamation of the Gospel in every age must be a translation of the event of
Jesus in the idiom of the day, which is the result of hearing the Gospel and
possessing the best wisdom of the age. We must read the Bible and read the
world. We must hear the witness of Scripture and be sensitive to the questions
and insights of our age.
Let me illustrate this from the experience of the Apostolic Church. Think for a
moment of what radical revolution the understanding of the Apostles had to
undergo to realize that God was in Jesus reconciling the world to Himself.
It took a vision on the Damascus Road to break through to Paul. His fierce
persecution of the followers of Jesus was his effort to stamp out a dangerous
heresy. It was carried out in the name of the God of Israel.
Peter did not understand that God’s grace was for all people, Jews and Gentiles,
until the housetop vision and the experience at Cornelius’ house, where he
experienced the Gentiles receiving the Holy Spirit just as had the Disciples on
Pentecost.
Look at the Scripture lesson – Stephen’s great witness that brought him to
martyrdom.
But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, and gazing intently up to heaven,
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God’s right hand. "Look, he
said, there is a rift in the sky; I can see the Son of Man standing at God's
right hand!” Acts 7:i>5-56
What a moving spectacle that must have been. Stephen, about to be the first
martyr for Jesus because he had been the first to see and understand deeply all
that had been accomplished in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection – because,
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
therefore, he was the first eloquent witness - and witness and martyr are the
same word in Greek - Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at God’s right hand and he cried to all present, oblivious to
the hostility and violence breeding in their breasts –
There is a rift in the sky! I can see…!
And there you have it; all the ingredients that eventuated in the historic Church’s
confession that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are One
God, blessed forever.
The Risen Lord has promised He would not leave His own alone but would come
to them and He did. On the day of Pentecost those gathered in the Upper Room
knew a power and a Presence that overwhelmed them with the conviction that
God was in their midst, that the Spirit of Jesus was with them, that the Spirit of
Jesus or the Spirit of God was one Spirit and suddenly it all became clear; they
began to comprehend what God had been doing in and through His Servant
Jesus.
It took a long time for the Church to be able to articulate that experience –
centuries, in fact. The need to give expression to experience was obvious, for they
were called to be witnesses to the world, but that was not so simple, for how does
one express the inexpressible?
The Christian mission advanced through the Hellenistic world shaped by Greek
language and Greek thought forms. Greek philosophy was the highest expression
of human reflection on life’s ultimate issues. Christian apologists borrowed the
language and the philosophical concepts and did their best to say,
God has visited this world.
God revealed Himself in Jesus.
The Spirit of God is with us, dwelling in us.
After centuries of struggle to articulate the experience of the Apostolic
community and the ongoing experience of the Church, creedal formulations were
advanced - the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian formula - with which the
Church has lived all these centuries. My point is that creeds derive from
experience and those first Apostles had to do some radical revising of their
theological understanding in the light of what confronted them in Jesus, his cross
and resurrection and the baptism of the Spirit.
To be sure, God’s dramatic intervention in our history was in Jesus. What
happened in Jesus became normative for every subsequent age. But history is
dynamic, history is movement and we continue to gain knowledge and
understanding of our world, of history, of ourselves. All of that must be
understood in the light of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ must be proclaimed in
the light of that knowledge .
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
Jesus Christ is the answer. That is true for every age. But what is the question?
The question that moves the human heart will be variously formulated in every
age and it is the task of the Church to listen for the questions and then speak to
the questions the Gospel in ever-new translation. Therefore, theological
understanding will be dynamic, just as history is dynamic. Theology is derived
from two poles - one rooted in a concrete history, the history of Israel and Jesus,
one moving with each new age and generation.
Theology must be the expression of God’s grace and salvation in Jesus in terms of
contemporary culture in order that the timeless Gospel may come to timely
expression.
Knowledge of God and experience of God are reciprocal. The knowledge in which
we are nurtured prepares us for the experience of God in our life situation and
out of the experience of God in concrete living our knowledge is reshaped and
translated anew.
Thus we do not have the knowledge of God expressed in creeds once for all with
the last word spoken. We have the knowledge of God revealed in Jesus coming to
ever-new expression in every new historical context. It is thus that Jesus Christ is
the same yesterday, today and forever.
Stephen’s death was an eloquent witness to the insight of faith he had received.
He died as Jesus died. He was filled with the Holy Spirit; he saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at God’s right hand.
Stephen saw a "rift in the sky;" he was given a vision of God. The reality of his
faith and knowledge was demonstrated in the manner of his death. In the midst
of a violent crowd with murderous intent he gazed into heaven. They stoned him
but he, falling to his knees, prayed,
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
With that, he "fell asleep." Is that not a remarkable description of the manner of
death of one being stoned by an angry crowd? And is not the truest test of one’s
knowledge and faith the way one lives and dies?
What a dynamic movement the Church was in those days. A handful of convinced
and committed disciples turned the world upside down. The Cross conquered the
mighty Empire of Rome.
It could happen again if we stopped arguing about structure and got on with the
mission; stopped worrying about bringing everyone into line with our faith
formulas and simply loved the world; stopped debating doctrinal points that
divide and allowed the Gospel to come to ever-new expression.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 9
If, in a word, we could move from tradition to mission, we might become again a
fruitful instrument in the Master’s hand for the salvation of the world and the
triumph of the Kingdom of God.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost V
Scripture Text
Acts 6: 5, 8
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-19850630
Date
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1985-06-30
Title
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The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 30, 1985 entitled "The Church: From Tradition to Mission", on the occasion of Pentecost V, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 6: 5, 8.
Community of Faith
Creeds
Followers of Jesus
Grace
Mission
Nature of Theology
Non-exclusive
Pluralism
Stephen
Traditionalsim