Identification Please

"We suprisingly get our identities more from our jobs than our life in a Christian community pursuing God's kingdom on earth." David Fitch The Great Giveaway, p.171

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This quote from Dave Fitch was shared during my class on missional church as an introduction to what a "missional" community looks like and acts like in the world. What Fitch is getting at in his book the Great Giveaway is that we as Christians in America in the 21st century have been shaped more by capitalism (i.e. our jobs) than by a deep connection to our identity as image-bearers of God who are called into a community that represents his Kingdom here on Earth.

Using this quote as a springboard, I want to reflect on:

1) What should our conscious identity as a community of Christians be?
2) In what ways does that rub against the grain of the culture we find ourselves in?
3) What difference does knowing our identity in Christ make for ourselves and the places where God has sent us?

I'll tackle the first now and the other two in later posts.

One of the callings of a Christian is to grow into becoming more like the Savior whom we serve. Its not enough just to pray a prayer and never have intentions for being transformed. The Christian faith is on that expects transformation, specifically transformation into Christ-likeness. The more we become like Jesus, the more we fulfill our first purpose on the Earth, which is to be image bearers of God (Gen. 1_27-28).

But the question that is being raised more and more is, "what does it mean to look like Jesus?" Over the past 200 years in this country, being like Jesus has been equated with trying not to sin, trying to live a holy life, and being as nice to everyone as you possibly can. But is this what Paul means when he says, "we are... being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory" (2 Cor. 3:18)?

Many leaders under the umbrella of "missional" are reimagining what it means to be in Christ's likeness by examining why Jesus was incarnated here on earth. As we behold Jesus from the perspective of his mission, we as his torch-bearers (so to speak) will be reformed.

The Jesus we see in the gospels saw himself primarily as a missionary ambassador. He considered himself sent by the Father to earth as a representative of the kingdom of heaven. He left his culture in heaven to become one of us: speaking our language, eating our food, wearing our clothes. His incarnation wasn't just of flesh, but of culture. As John Calvin puts it, he condescends himself the way a parent does in order to communicate with a child. He spoke "baby talk" so that we could understand.

But as much as he was relevant to the culture he was sent to, he also challenged that culture in big ways. He never forgot that the culture he was sent to wasn't his own. In the same way that the US ambassador in France doesn't forget that he is an American, so Jesus never forgot his "heavenness" and his mission.

Keeping those two aspects in mind, consider what Jesus tells his followers in John 20:21, "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." This is the key indentifying marker of a follower of Christ. He or she one who is sent by Jesus into the cultures they find themselves. What this means for us is that we are not first and foremost Americans, we are missionaries sent from heaven to America.

My deeply convicting question for all of us (myself included) is, "do we see ourselves as a people sent by Jesus into the world for the purpose of representing him to the nations (US included)? Or do we tend to forget our true citizenship in heaven and allow ourselves to be defined more by our jobs, families, sports, bank accounts, denominations, good deeds, (fill in the blank)?

More to come...