The Gospel and Suburban Churches (part 3)

Matt Hand writes: When I used the term "kingdom" in my original posting, I meant for it to be understood in two simple ways. The first is to think of the kingdom in terms of the in-breaking of Christ's reign, bringing true righteousness, justice, holiness, and peace. Dan explained this aspect of the kingdom well in his posting (Part 2, comment #4), so I won't belabor that.

The second is to think of other believers in terms of "fellow citizens" of God's kingdom. A key passage in my thinking that stresses this kind of unity is Ephesians 2:11-22. Paul is exhorting believers to live in the reality that Christ came in the flesh and, through his bloody death, killed the social/ethnic/racial/political hostility that too often exists between fellow believers (in context, Jews and Gentiles). He tells them all to live with the new perspective that they are fellow citizens of God's kingdom, fellow members of God's household, and fellow stones of God's temple.

It's not my purpose here to write an exhaustive theology of the kingdom. I simply want to think in terms of these two aspects of the kingdom (the in-breaking of shalom, etc., through the incarnation of Christ, and our resulting fellow citizenship). Kingdom work, as this passage continues into chapter 3, involves making known the mystery of reconciliation in Christ so that the glorious wisdom of God is put on display.

Suburban churches can display these two aspects of kingdom living by partnering with like-minded urban churches for the sake of the gospel. Urban churches (like ours) have on-the-ground know-how, but few resources. Suburban churches often have those resources, but may (repeat: may) be guilty of using those resources fairly selfishly for maintaining happy church people, rather than reaching out to the unchurched/lost in their own urban centers. When I use the term "maintenance" I'm not talking about a discipleship program or Bible study curriculum or anything like that which is designed to grow believers in Christ. I AM talking about the tendency for suburban churches to "tear down barns and build bigger barns" just because they can. I'm talking about professing Christians who have an insatiable appetite to have more, bigger, better, newer, glitzier stuff -- all in the name of doing church. I'm talking about Christians who limit their conception of (and interest in) the work of Christ to what He's doing in their own heart or just their church. Is it really that selfless to give away a dollar when you know 99 cents of it is going to be used on you?

One way suburban Christians can advance the gospel of the kingdom is by looking at urban Christians and genuinely thinking of them as fellow citizens in Christ -- as brothers and sisters and members of the same Body. If the watching world began to observe that degree of community among believers, it would destroy their ability to stereotype the Church as being urban or suburban, white or black, rich or poor, young or old. If suburban Christians had a kingdom-like concern to eradicate the disparity of wealth, healthcare, crime, abortion, etc., THROUGH THE COMPREHENSIVE TEACHING OF THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM in their own urban centers, what would be the result? The world doesn't have categories for explaining away that kind of radical commitment to Christian reconciliation and shalom. As a result, the Church (not a church) would be a city set on a hill, an alternate kingdom of God in the cities of men.