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The following information is taken from https://athdio.ca/resources/diocesan  "Diocese of Athabasca Best Practices.pdf”:

 

I’m going to share a series leading up to our Diocesan Synod I’d like to begin with, “What is the Church?"

 

When we think of the Incarnation, we naturally and rightly think of those astonishing thirty-three years during which God lived among us as a man. But the Incarnation of God’s Word in Christ did not end with Christs Ascension.  Christ continues to be mysteriously but genuinely present and incarnate in the world, through the Church, communally and in its individual members.  In you.

 

The Church is the New Humanity, the redeemed human race now sharing the life of God himself, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit.  

 

The Church is a heavenly body pulsating with divine brightness and life.  Most members of the church are no longer earthly mortals but part of a vast company who are now in God’s presence or waiting in His throne room for the New Creation, the new heaven and earth.  They are those who have died in the faith.  The Communion of Saints, sharing in delighted communion with God. They are not subject to death, and they experience no sin, no injustice, no scandal, and no imperfection. They have reached the destiny for which they were created.

 

The Church is the beauty and light of God centered on the figure of Christ, who is head and bridegroom, ever leading and begetting new life within it. The fortunes of the Church are beyond the reach of anything on earth and are squarely in the hands of God. 

 

Within the Church saints from every age, including our own, are united together, joyful as each generation brings another rich harvest to the growing body of perfected humanity until the times are fulfilled and all are gathered in. And so the eternal Church is constantly growing, as its human members slip through the veil from this life to the next.

 

We, the portion of the Church living our mortal lives, are the small bridgehead of a great and growing company, gathered by God since the beginning of time.  The entire church is working in God’s war effort against the fallen world and all that is evil.

 

Through a thin veil we have communication, friendship, and communion with that majority of the church, now with God. 

Those of us in our bridgehead, landing on the beaches, are being prepared for our true home, battling to live according to God’s desires while witnessing to the truth of Christ for the sake of others. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ makes Himself present to us. The struggling human members of the Church on earth, we who are still broken, diseased, and in the process of healing, are the least numerous, least impressive, least potent, and most transitory part of the Church.  

 

Yet we are critical.

 

We live in the place of dark valleys, of temptation, of confusion, of destruction, of death.  We are the current bridgehead.  Christ Himself is alive among us as physician, teacher, and king. He leads us along our path to eternity.

 

Blind to this vision, the world sometimes asks, “The way things are going, will the Church be able to survive?”  There is no question of the Church “surviving.” The Church is gloriously alive and beyond the reach of death. It is the fallen world that will not survive. 

 

The Church is at the center of this world’s drama. Just as the whole of human history was turning on the person of Jesus even when He was unknown and living in a small town in Galilee, so the whole of human history turns on the person of Jesus as He is present and working in and through the body He has chosen for himself, His Church.

 

The Church is both divine and human. The heart of the Church and its most important aspect is its divine nature: the presence of the Holy Spirit within it, the channel of saving graces flowing through the sacraments, the living fire of the Scriptures, the truths about God and humanity that are treasured and taught, and Christ Himself at the core of its life that gives form and purpose to everything it does.  The church loving Jesus by loving the “least of these” – those who are downtrodden and discounted.

 

That divine personality is made visible in each one of us. Christ came to reveal His Fathers kingdom, and to the Church He has passed that task, giving us the keys to the Kingdom, to allow the people of the world in.

 

Faith looks for the signs, hears the voice of God in the Scriptures, hungers for the bread of life in the Eucharist, and knows that Christ Himself is present. Illuminated by the vision of faith, we see that the fate of the Church is not decided by appearance, by public relations, by political or social machinations and manipulations. It is not upheld by money, by influential connections, or by human laws.  The strength of the Church is found in its heavenly divine life. It is rooted in the eternal regions where it cannot be touched; it is animated by the life of God himself, inhabiting it as His body; and its bridgehead on earth is strong when its members, you, are becoming holy, usually in hidden ways that no one can see.

 

PURPOSE

The church works on the earth and in the heavens to continue Christs’ ministry.  The true Church is known by forgiveness; forgiveness is its calling card, its heart, and its foundation.  The hallmark of the church is that it extends forgiveness in all times and at all places, inviting all to encounter the Grace of the Holy Spirit, and be changed from the Kingdom of the World to the Kingdom of God.
 
When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was, His answer was “Love God with all you are and love your fellow humans as you love yourself.”  Love.  He amplified that statement with the ‘new’ command: “Love one another as I love you.”  What is God’s work?  To love: seek what is healthiest for the context you are in.
 
We are called by Christ to be communities where the members genuinely love each other.  
We are called by Christ to be communities where the members show His love to those outside of the community.
 
When you interview your new priest, whomever they may be, have these questions uppermost in your mind: 
“Will this person teach us how to love?” 
“Will this person show us how to love?” 
“Will this person love us, as different as we are?”
 
The culture for our church, throughout our diocese, is to be one of love: seeking what is healthiest for each other.  Caring for each other.  Helping each other.  Forgiving each other.  Providing for each other.
 
Through the love of Christ, through His sacrifice on the cross, we are reconciled with God and with each other.
 
Treasure that love.  Hold onto that love.  Practice that love.  Share that love.  Indwell the members of the church with that love.
 
The church is about love.

 

 

+David