Holy Worldliness

The understanding of the church that I settle on and develop, and want students to wrestle through in the class I teach called “The Church’s Ministry,” is: the church is a Glorifying, Missional, Community. In support of this perspective, the paragraphs below come from an article in The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding’s (Walt Mueller—an excellent resource for parents and anyone who works with teens or young adults) winter Newsletter: ENGAGE: The Journal of Youth Culture from CPYU.

Stott writes (this is an excerpt from his book “Living Church”):

“. . . There is a third way to understand the church, which combines what is true in both false images, and which recognizes that we have a responsibility both to worship God and to serve the world. This is the double identity of the church (or incarnational Christianity). By its “double identity” I mean that the church is a people who have been both called out of the world to worship God and sent back into the world to witness and serve. These are, in fact, two of the classical “marks” of the church. According to the first, the church is “holy,” called out to belong to God and to worship him. According to the second, the church is “apostolic,” sent out into the world on its mission. Alternatively, we may say that the church is summoned by God to be simultaneously “holy” (distinct from the world) and “worldly” (not in the sense of assimilating the world’s values and standards, but in the sense of renouncing other-worldliness and becoming instead immersed in the life of the world). It was Dr. Alec Vidler who admirably captured the church’s double identity by referring to its “holy worldliness.”

He concludes the article with this very appropriate assessment and call to the church . . .

“Seldom in its long history has the church managed to preserve its God-given double identity of holy worldliness. Instead, it has tended to oscillate between the two extremes. Sometimes (in an over-emphasis on its holiness) the church has withdrawn from the world and so has neglected its mission. At other times (in an over-emphasis on its worldliness) it has conformed to the world, assimilating its views and values, and so has neglected its holiness. But in order to fulfill its mission, the church must faithfully respond to both its calling and preserve both parts of its identity.

“Mission” arises, then, from the biblical doctrine of the church in the world. If we are not “the church,” the holy and distinct people of God, we have nothing to say because we are compromised. If, on the other hand, we are not “in the world,” deeply involved in its life and suffering, we have no one to serve because we are insulated. Our calling is to be “holy” and “worldly” at the same time. Without this balanced biblical ecclesiology we will never recover or fulfill our mission.”

Taken from The Living Church by John Stott. InterVarsity Press.

Blessings
3 John 8
Bill Higley