Ministries Blog

By Rev. John W. Nupp

“If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

John 13:17 (NRSV)

What do you miss most about your childhood summers? Mine followed that rhythm of work and rest, of hoeing rows of corn and riding bikes, of weeding and mowing through the hot days that lengthened into long evenings of kick-the-can and catching lightning bugs.

Now there still is plenty of grass to mow and weeds to catch up with, but what happened to the lightning bugs?

I must confess that at first I did not notice they were missing. Life had become so busy and the air conditioning such a comfort that chasing a few fireflies in a grassy field had simply faded into my memory. My wife, who teaches Kindergarten, reports to me that her students responded with puzzled looks when she mentioned bugs blinking and lighting up the fields in summertime. What Rachel Carson predicted in 1962 as a “Silent Spring” has become a summer of light pollution that leaves us blind to lesser wonders.

I worry that someday, maybe in the not-too-distant future, some will say, “I wonder what ever happened to all those churches that were around when I was younger?” For an increasing number of people, religious affiliation is but a fading memory. Indeed, for many in the next generation of Americans, corporate religious experience registers no place in their memory at all. Just like those young students in my wife’s class, when you talk about God, the only reaction you are likely to receive are puzzled looks and a few blank stares.

As we consider the diminishing influence of the church in our world, several questions arise:

1. How will we answer the call of God in our lives;
2. How will we achieve the goal of sharing grace within the congregations we serve, the settings for our ministry?
3. Ultimately, how will God’s call on our lives, worked out in the grace we share, work through us to transform the world?

In order to answer to these fundamental questions, we are going to have to learn a new language, God’s language.

Those of us who grow up in these United States have a hard time imagining the need to learn a foreign language, since many of us assume that wherever we go, American English will be spoken and understood. Likewise, those of us within the church world, particularly in the American Protestant Church, have grown accustomed to living in our church-centered bubble. Everyone speaks our language, don’t they?

The short answer is, no, they don’t!

Dallas Willard uses the process of learning a new language as a metaphor for learning how to grow and change into more active followers of Jesus. In order to become adept at a new language, you need to have a Vision. But having a vision alone will not enable you to acquire that language; you must attend to your will, your intention, your desire to apply yourself to learning. Beyond this Vision and Intention, you must develop the Means to language acquisition.

Those of us steeped in the Wesleyan tradition are familiar with the language of means, specifically the means of grace. These are the channels by which God’s grace, God’s active love, flows into our lives. By these means we find places to meet with God, ways to connect with others who are seeking God.

When we lose our way, when we stumble along in the dark, when we lose our joy, these are the lesser lights that lead us to the True Light, restoring us to the joy of our salvation.

We may have a vision of God’s love abundantly at work in the world, but what makes this Vision more than just a distant memory, more than just a dream?

We may address our work as servants of Christ with the intention of seeing God’s grace, God’s radical acceptance, lived out in our homes and in the church. But how we move from vision and intention into lives of discipleship comes by way of employing those means of grace God has given us.

Sounds like common sense, doesn’t it? Seems like a no-brainer? But how many times have we become so busy in our lives, so comfortable in our sanctuaries, that we have lost sight of the life we have been missing?

I submit to you, brothers and sisters in Christ, and fellow servants of the Servant, that we are losing sight of the Means of Grace.

By our own efforts to maintain well-manicured houses of worship, we have managed to eclipse the source of light in our midst. By seeking to provide for our own security, we have drowned out the lesser lights that lead us to the source of joy, to salvation from our own self-righteousness. We have become so ingrown and self-centered in our spiritual lives that we have begun to lose the ability to hear and speak the language of God.

And so, we must embark on a campaign of Spiritual Literacy. If we ourselves knew the language of God already, don’t you think we could have taught the world how to love by now. But dear children of God, there is so much we need to unlearn of our God-talk, our church language, our own plans. There is so much listening to be done – listening to the Spirit in the silence of our unique hearts, listening to the interactive Spirit in scripture as we study together, listening to the Living Word alive in the streets. After we unlearn what we thought we knew, after we listen, then comes the speaking.

We are called to be unique, but not individualistic, bringing truth to power in the shape of a cross.

By what means, you may ask? By all means necessary, by all the means of grace, that is, all the means of God’s radical love God has provided to speak to the world. And not just to speak, but to transform. For the One who spoke Creation into being still speaks that Word which creates, which redeems, that language which brings life and light.