DownloadMay 10 issue
Road trip to seek God's face
By Isaac S. VillegasPage:
- 1
- 2
“God is here among us,” we sing as we assemble for worship. “Let us all adore him and with awe appear before him.”
Villegas
This hymn by Gerhard Tersteegen describes how our scattered lives join to become the body of Christ. God’s life becomes interior to our own: “God is here within us,” we proclaim with Tersteegen’s words from 18th-century Germany.
In our communities of worship, God is present, moving through us and with us. As theologian John Howard Yoder put it in Body Politics, “The community’s action is God’s action.”
Or, as Yoder wrote in The Royal Priesthood, “God does not merely authorize or command” the activities of the church. Rather, “God is doing them in, with and under the human practice.”
God is present through the ordinary life of our congregations. The life of God pulses through the body of Christ, flowing through us and with us. Congregational life ushers in the presence of God’s eternal love for the world.
During the next five months, I will dwell in God’s presence as I visit Mennonite congregations across the United States, from Lancaster to San Francisco.
I hope to glimpse the face of God in a diversity of locations. I hope to hear God’s voice among the words of worship offered in different gatherings. I hope to feel the life-giving Spirit breathe through congregational bodies.
This column will be a series of scenes from God’s mission among rural and urban congregations, wealthy and poor, young and old, recent church plants and historic congregations.
I hope to see Christ’s love made flesh in the diversity of his many members. I hope to see the features of God’s face in the sisters and brothers of the Mennonite family.
Every congregation offers a path into the presence of God: “God is here within us,” we declare with Tersteegen’s hymn, “soul, in silence fear him, humbly, fervently draw near him.”
Page:
- 1
- 2
Comment on the article Road trip to seek God's face
The purpose of comments is to engage in dialogue. We expect commenters to treat authors and each other as each would want to be treated. Respectful criticism is welcomed; offensive comments or parts of comments will be removed by the site administrator. Name and comment will be posted; email address is for follow-up only and will not be made public.
Download a free PDF showing the populations of
Mennonite groups and other Anabaptists.
