Intro
“What connection does Jesus’ message of the coming Kingdom have to the church’s message today?” An answer to this question can inform the broader question, “What should the church look like today?” As a way of addressing these questions and as a way of narrowing a response to them, this paper will look at a specific ministry to see what it might mean for Jesus’ message of the Kingdom to shape a specific context.
Context
The specific ministry I have in mind is a young adult’s fellowship group that existed for a few years in
Hollywood. The group was attached to a large, prominent evangelical/mainline Protestant church with a history of teaching and sending out many evangelical leaders of the last century. The church is situated on the boarder of two neighborhoods, separated by economics and class. On one side, the neighborhood is characterized by trendy coffee shops and boutiques catering to an upwardly mobile cliental that live close by. On the other side, the neighborhood is more working class and hosts an immigrant population as well as a number of homeless people. The leadership of the larger church body had been exclusively male, while the leadership of the young adult’s group involved many co-leaders, male and female, who were picked from the group.
What the Kingdom of God Might Look Like Here
Some of the problems faced by the group and which eventually led to its demise were the socio-economic differences in the surrounding neighborhood and those within the makeup of the group as well. That is, as a young adult’s group in the middle of Hollywood it attracted many well-educated transplants to the city, who were interested in beginning profitable careers in the film industry. So, at first, the group was mostly homogenous, economically and socially, and racially as well—it was a predominantly anglo group. But over time, the group began to attract people who lived in the poorer of the two neighborhoods. This addition brought a welcome diversity to the group, but it also asked the group to grow and mature in response to the different needs that these newer members or visitors brought with them. Some of these needs were physical, i.e., the homeless visitors often were in need of food. But many of these needs were emotional and spiritual as well. As the number of members with deeper needs grew, the leaders of the group—many young twenty-somethings with specific career goals—felt overwhelmed by the scope and range of the needs—so much so, that the group eventually ended. So the felt presence of the Kingdom of God in this context would address both these needs of the newer members as well as the sense of being overwhelmed that the leaders experienced. The Kingdom’s healing and freedom would have been especially transforming in this context—where people might be healed from emotional and spiritual brokenness, where people might be able to get their physical needs met, and where burdens might be better shared between the young adult’s fellowship group church and the surrounding communities.
Activities
For the ministry to thrive in this neighborhood, partnerships between the larger church, the young adult’s fellowship group, the surrounding businesses, local social service agencies, and local government would have to develop and grow. So, for instance, the young adult’s group could form relationships with some of the older members of the congregation. The establishment of such bonds could respond to a number of potentially unKingdom-like practices in the church. For one—using David Fitch’s assessment of the North American Church as a lens—the larger Church, hosting the young adult’s group, tends to promote isolation between small groups and ministries so that there is a fragmented sense of community where formational stories are not as easily shared between members; i.e., many of the young adults who came to the fellowship had no real connection to the larger body and could come, get their needs met, and leave without having to invest in any real commitments. Also, in creating tighter bonds between the different fellowships, the burdens felt by the young adult fellowship leaders could be shared with older, wiser, members of Christ’s Body. Making connections between the small groups within the church is just one example of how the Kingdom might become more rooted within the activities of the church, and another step would be to make connections with organizations outside the larger church body.
Conclusion
In looking at the relationship between God’s Kingdom and the Church, Gerhard Lohfink asked, “what was Jesus doing in his ministry?” And Lohfink offered that a large part of what Jesus was doing was gathering a community around him to partake in God’s eschatological Kingdom. So first and foremost, the Church becomes a truer sign of the Kingdom when it is able to create real community. The young adult’s group that I am looking at suffered from the fragmentation and isolation between and within the various communities that it encountered. So, in order for it to embrace more Kingdom-like practices such fragmentation and isolation would first need to be healed.
