My Understanding of the Christian Faith and the Church’s Ministry
By Nathan J. Hill
Note: I had to write this for my licensing interview. Please note — this is all subject to change, but it was quite a difficult task punching down my thoughts on the nature and purpose of church. Feel free to try it too.
My understanding of the Christian faith is relationship. Faith is a call to be in conversation with God the Creator. Out of this conversation, we learn that God has chosen us, despite our brokenness. We are to be God’s image in the world – think representatives. We are also called to live in covenant with one another, the world, and our Creator. This covenant life calls us to champion the principles of justice, peace, and compassion.
Creation became broken through our messed up humanity. We have a choice – good or evil, and more often than not, we choose evil. This sin then affects our lives, relationship, families, and world. Despite this, God has chosen to work with us throughout history and through different peoples. Jesus is another stage of God’s relationship with Creation. Through Christ, we are offered a way to reconciliation and redemption – a way to become right with God so we may break free from the bonds of sin. Through Christ, the message of God expanded out to the world. We can become part of the family and help Creation become unbroken.
The Church is the manifestation of this holy covenantal community. Within these faithful communities, we can find wholeness, healing, acceptance, and discipline. We can learn and be renewed in our daily walks. We praise God and ask difficult question. We can discover new ways to know God. We can also live out the radical call of covenant – justice, forgiveness, and mercy. A Church is like our staging ground and our support group for the life we live. Even as we energize one another, we also mourn and argue. The idea is that this community will be a pocket of God’s ideal unbroken Creation in the world.
The call of the Church is to then take Christ’s message of peace, justice, and hope to the world, to spread the good news, to share the stories, and to change the world for the better. Through this transformation, we hope then that the entire world will be set alight by God’s love, that there would be no more tears, no more pain, no more sorrow.
