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When Jesus said "Those who seek to save their life will lose it," I wonder if he meant that of the church as a whole? With the church in the West so under threat, a lot of energy has been expended to preserve it, shoring up its theological and moral position in the midst of an increasingly pluralistic culture. We are keen to defend and express spirituality in explicitly christian terms (which usually means mentioning the name of Jesus, or pronouncing some empty theological truism like 'God loves you') lest we be mistaken as "New Age", or "liberal" or ---insert your own anachronism---.
The more we seek to justify our position or demonstrate our success, the more we are seeking to "preserve our own life" in a sense.
At The Eighth Day, we do not try to foist our views or doctrines on others. Rather we seek to serve our local community and its members, for the purpose of making West and North Melbourne a better place to be. We seek to draw people together, offer opportunities to reflect, create, explore and discover together. We do not back away from the fact that we are christians, but neither do we impose that on others.
When we changed the name from West Melbourne Baptist Church (WMBC) to The Eighth Day, it was partly due to a recognition that "West Melbourne", "Baptist", and "Church" carry a lot of baggage that we do not wish to perpetuate. It wasn't that we want to deny that heritage, we didn't want to rest on it or recreate it. We believe that God is asking us to be something different: to not try to bring people into a building, but to be a people in the wider community. An interesting sidelight of the name change was that people began asking what we are about. Previously when we had said "WMBC", we were given a knowing look of resignation, and swift end to the conversation. Now, we get one of two responses: from christians we get "why The Eighth Day?", and from others, "Wow, that's great... I love the image", or "tell me about it..."
We have lost the sense of identity that went with the previous name, and the security that goes with it. The way we are seen is up to us - the way we live in the community. It's a little scary, but exciting at the same time.
Posted by gary at March 7, 2005 07:25 PM
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