parochialism re-invented

i had the honour to be present last evening at the "kick-off event" for a new "church plant," which in this case took the plant metaphor seriously, with an image of a banyon tree: northwest community church.

although much of their theology i might consider far from orthodox, mainly in terms of their intense concentration on the second person of the trinity, a concentration which seems shared by much current american protestantism, there is a part of their understanding of what it means to be church that is i think very important and very orthodox and which more of the church could learn from them with benefit.

northwest community church wants to be a church in and for and with the community. the church poured out, to put words in their mouth, or in the mouth of the pastor, for the life of the world. once upon a time, before the church saw herself as so splintered, the church in constantinopole or rome or alexandria or salisbury organized herself into parishes, and saw the care of the souls within each parish as her pastoral duty. we might call this the good old days. and it seems that northwest community church is calling us again to good days. let us pray they will succeed "beyond what we can hope for or imagine."