From the Pastor - "Writing the Body of Christ" May 2016

Dear Friends in Christ,

The Pumpkin Patch at Trinity is an amazing experience, especially unloading the trucks.  Dozens of people form a “pumpkin brigade” and pass a pumpkin from one person to another until it finds a home on the church lawn.  It is a group effort that shows the power of working together.

One way of doing theological reflection is called “writing the body of Christ.”¹  Using Paul’s image from 1 Corinthians. 12:12-27, this model focuses on the communal aspect of being Christian.  In Ephesians 4, Paul says that Christ equips the saints with gifts for the work of ministry, the purpose of which is “building up the body of Christ.”² 

During one of my Kellogg leadership courses in April, I heard another participant, a man from Ghana, speak about the interconnectedness of persons through the African concept of ubuntu.  He said: “When you do well, I do well.  When I hurt, you hurt.” 

When I was part of a mission encounter on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota, a Lakota man spoke about a similar notion in his culture: “We are all relatives.” 

One advantage of writing the body of Christ is that it reminds us that as Christians we are part of something greater than ourselves.  We call it church.  Together we are greater than the sum of our parts. 

James Hopewell asserts that a congregation can contribute to the construction of its identity through the stories it tells about itself.³   

That is why Trinity’s strategic planning team is collecting your stories of Trinity, as well as your hopes for the future. 

Help create the story of Trinity Church and flex the muscles of our interconnectedness as the body of Christ. 

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Brian C. Smith

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¹ Elaine Graham, Heather Walton, and Frances Ward. Theological Reflection: Methods. London: SCM, 2005. 109-137.

² Eph. 4:12b, NRSV.

³ Ibid. Graham, et al. 121.