Focus
8/08/02

One of the definitions of "focus" is the center of interest or activity. What never ceases to amaze me is how easy it is for individuals and groups to lose focus, to lose their center of interest or activity. Once this happens nothing else the person or group does will serve their original purpose. What can be most discouraging is that sometimes those who become "unfocused" may be the people we have counted on the most as leaders. 

I believe the church's vision is out of focus. It is not a new problem, but that fact does not make it any less important for us in leadership to recognize it and devote ourselves to changing it. Churches have gotten off the track, spending time and energy doing what fails to serve their reason d'etre. Means have become ends, and true ends have been pushed so far to the side they are no longer in the field of vision.

The Jesus Connection exists to help with this problem. The only way we who are involved in transformation can keep our focus is to bring attention to the purpose for which the church exists in the first place. I understand that purpose to be witnessing to God's love as revealed in and taught by Jesus. Everything else churches do is auxiliary to this purpose, including what we are doing in TJC. Our focus has to be becoming a witnessing community. This is the goal toward transformation is both intended and directed. The fact that churches are not witnessing in word and deed, in short, through who they are, accounts for the passion I feel for what TJC is trying to do. None of us needs more to do in ministry, but all of us have to do more because the congregations we serve need to reclaim their original purpose.

I was in Washington, D.C. two weeks ago and had the opportunity to visit with Gordon and Mary Cosby of The Church of The Savior. They may be old in age (85) but not in intellect or passion for the gospel. I asked Mary if she thought our culture made it harder for churches to be the church than was true 56 years ago when they started C of S. Her answer? "Oh, my yes!" She went on to say that she viewed the dominant culture as exalting selfishness. Further, she believes the church must bear part of the responsibility for it because it abdicated its prophetic role many years ago, choosing instead to reflect the culture rather than challenge it.

A good case can be made for her perspective, but at least what she said underscores how important the church keeping its focus truly is. TJC cannot keep its focus without a daily emphasis on the purpose of the church. Moreover, I think we have only scratched the surface of the radical nature of the gospel and how much better all of us can do in living it. This is what our people need to hear. It is the content of the vision that drives TJC ministry. It is my view that most of us in leadership overestimate the extent to which people actually understand the gospel and the reason for the church. We overestimate the degree to which they understand what makes them Christian and how utterly counter-cultural being Christian is. We can teach them these things even though we are still students of Jesus ourselves. Though this may seem too broad a task to enable us to keep the focus in what we are doing in TJC process, I think the reality is that this is the only way we can do it. Jesus gave specific commandments, but most of all he talked about the Kingdom of God. That was the context for the commandments and what prevented them from becoming distractions. It is no different with us. Keeping the larger vision in focus allows all the small things to be seen clearly.
 
Jan Linn - Spirit of Joy Christian Church, Apple Valley, MN