{"id":18504,"date":"2019-12-31T09:21:33","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T14:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18504"},"modified":"2019-12-31T09:21:33","modified_gmt":"2019-12-31T14:21:33","slug":"the-work-of-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18504","title":{"rendered":"The Work of Healing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p> Tuesday, December 31, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YhCzzQQNnLA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>Up\nto now, top-down religion has pretty much spoiled the show. We need trained\nexperts, scholars, leaders, and teachers, but the truths of Christianity must\nbe made much more accessible, available, localized, and pastoral. Most people\ndo not need to have encyclopedic knowledge of theology or Scripture. To begin\nwith, why not flatten out the huge and unbiblical distinction between clergy\nand laity? [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Christian\nchurches do much good, we have one huge pastoral problem that is making\nChristianity largely ineffective\u2014and largely decorative. Solid orthodox\ntheology is sorely needed (and yes, I am obsessed with it), yet we clearly need\ngood and compassionate pastoral and healing practices <em>ten times more! <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems to me\nthat we must begin to validate Paul\u2019s original teaching on \u201cmany gifts and many\nministries\u201d (1 Corinthians 12:4-11). Together, these diverse gifts \u201cmake a\nunity in the work of service\u201d (Ephesians 4:12-13, Jerusalem Bible). Individual\ncommunities may do this well, but on the whole we need Christian people who are\ntrained in, validated for, and encouraged to make home and hospital visits; do\nhospice work and jail ministry; support immigrants and refugees; help with soup\nkitchens or food pantries; counsel couples before, during, and after marriage;\nshare child development resources with families; offer ministries of emotional,\nsexual, and relational healing; help with financial counseling; build low-cost\nhousing; take care of the elderly; run thrift centers\u2014all of which put\nChristian people in immediate touch with other people and for which no\nordination is needed. Ordination would probably even get in the way. Remember,\nhealing was most of the work Jesus did. This fact is almost too obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My vision of any\nfuture church is much flatter and much more inclusive. Either we see Christ in\neveryone, or we hardly see Christ in anyone. Frankly, my hope for Christianity\nis that it becomes less \u201cchurchy,\u201d less patriarchal, and more concerned with\nliving its <em>mission\nstatement <\/em>than with\nendlessly reciting our heavenly vision and philosophy statement\u2014the Nicene\nCreed\u2014every Sunday. There seem to be very few actionable items in most\nChristians\u2019 lives beyond attending worship services, which largely creates a\nclosed and self-validating system.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Simply put, any notion of a\nfuture church must be a fully practical church that is concerned about <em>getting the job of love done\u2014and done better and better. <\/em>Centuries emphasizing art\nand architecture, music, liturgy, and prescribed roles have their place, but\ntheir overemphasis has made us a very top-heavy and decorative church that is\nconstantly concerned with its own in-house salvation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday, December 31, 2019 Up to now, top-down religion has pretty much spoiled the show. We need trained experts, scholars, leaders, and teachers, but the truths of Christianity must be made much more accessible, available, localized, and pastoral. Most people do not need to have encyclopedic knowledge of theology or Scripture. To begin with, why [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18505,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18504\/revisions\/18505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}