Yes dear readers, for those of you who know your Bible, you will recognize the title of this post as a re-framing of Jesus' question to his disciples: Who do people say that I am?
For this post however, I am not worried about what other people think about us but rather what we think about ourselves.
As I was doing some research today, I came across this survey on the Disciples of Christ website
(http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=jpybty63fj3u4jtg9drdkg_3d_3d). I am really struck by the introduction and thought it would be a good thing to ask UUs.
Here's the introduction:
Who do we say that we are? Identity is a vital concern for all parts of the church. Many long-time (Disciples) worry that we may be losing crucial characteristics of our common life. New (Disciples) want to know about the distinctive gifts of this community of faith. All of us need to have clarity about who we are in order to be faithful and effective witnesses to (Jesus Christ).
A church’s identity must be firmly rooted in scripture and yet flexible enough to adapt to changes in culture and the shifting demands of mission. Early Christians in Jerusalem had to learn what it meant to be faithful in Antioch and Rome. Our (Disciples) forebears, as they moved from the frontier to the city, had to rethink such matters as congregational autonomy and the goal of “restoring” the New Testament church. Today, we wrestle with what it means to be disciples of (our Lord) in a world that is increasingly pluralistic, globally connected, and yet so often violently divided.
Isn't that interesting? If you change the word Unitarian or Universalist for Disciples, this is something we need to wrestle with?
So here are the questions that have come to my mind:
1. What are the crucial characteristics of our common life?
2. What are the distinctive gifts of this community of faith?
3. Since the number of people in our communities of faith do not consider themselves Christian, what are we faithful and effective witnesses to/for?
4. In the same vein, what are we disciples of?
And the main question: Who do we say that we are?
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1 comment:
Yet that's not what Jesus asked.
He asked "Who do you say I am?"
So it's almost an existential question--who cares who we think we are, or say we are? Heck, Pat Robertson and others profess to be the sine qua non of Christian--though I don't think they'd actually phrase it that way. The point is that while such people are performing their more Christian-than-thou pirouettes in public... the vast majority of the population isn't buying. In fact, they've poisoned the public image of what being Christian is, and means.
So ask instead, who do they say you (or we) are? Because that's an intensely important question.
You see, you and I presumably already know who we really are (or at least think we do). But that may or may not connect with how we're perceived or understood. If so, it's incumbent on us to act in ways that ensure that our walk meets our talk. But simply saying to people who we think we are... in the current social atmosphere... is likely to get shrugs and eye rolls, at best.
Don't tell. Show.
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