THE HEARTBEAT OF FAITH

There is a rhythm to being the church. It is the rhythm of gathering and sending. It was present in the very first community of disciples whom Jesus called to follow him and then sent out to do his work in the world. This pattern of calling together and sending out is found in two New Testament words which name Christ's followers: ekklesia (church, assembly, literally "called out") and apostoloi (apostles, literally "sent away"). We practice it every week in our worship, which begins with our being called to worship and ends with our being sent into the world.

These two processes of being called together and sent out are the heartbeat of our lives as Christians, the breathing in and breathing out of the Body of Christ. We often think of the church only in terms of the gathering part of our identity. We are visibly the church when we are together. We value the fellowship, the caring, the worship, the education, the prayers, the sense of belonging that we experience as the gathered church. We build places for our gathering that become symbols of the all the ways we experience the presence, power, and pathos of God when we are gathered together.

But that is only half of who we are, only half a heartbeat. The other half is the church that is sent in the power of the Spirit to bring the presence, power, and pathos of God to the world. It is easy to overlook or minimize this half. Like the wind, it is visible only in its effects. It has no spires, no pews, no stained glass to distinguish its presence. But it is as essential to being the church as is the calling together half. Without it, we are holding our breath, or worse still, not breathing at all.

When we gather as a presbytery on September 20, we hope to hear this second half of our heartbeat, we want to make visible the wind of the Spirit who sends us out. One way we will do this is during our worship.  As we present our offering, we will invite the teaching elders and ruling elder commissioners to present, along with their financial gifts, an offering of mission - symbolized by stars, hearts, or crosses on which are written the various ways in which their congregations are engaged in the "sending out" part of our lives as Christians. It could be service rendered through Meals on Wheels or Habitat for Humanity. Perhaps it is a community day care or a mission partnership in a foreign land.

Whatever it is that keeps our churches breathing, whatever completes the heartbeat of our shared lives, we want to celebrate by making it visible. And in so doing, we might inspire each other to serve in new ways, and identify common mission interests.

It is an exercise that can be replicated in congregations, too. On one Sunday (perhaps during stewardship season), we could invite worshipers to present an offering of one or more ways they are individually engaging in the "sending out" part of our Christian lives and then post them on bulletin boards to show the combined impact of their individual mission efforts.

Gathering and sending; worship and mission; fellowship and service - these are the two halves of our Christian vocation. They are the heartbeat of faith, the breathing in and breathing out of the Body of Christ. As the Presbytery of Lake Huron, let's help one another to a stronger heartbeat, healthier respiration, and more transforming mission as God's apostolic people.