Mission
…following Jesus into God’s reality.
Jesus began his earthly ministry by announcing the arrival of the Kingdom of God. Because of Jesus–his life, death, and resurrection– people can once again experience the benevolent reign of God in their lives. Salvation, healing, justice, and much more are now available to anyone who believes in Christ.
In other words, we now have access to reality as God experiences it and as we will one day experience it when Jesus returns and renews all things. God’s reality breaks into our reality, giving us glimpses here in the present of what will be in the future. The Kingdom has already come.
But these are only glimpses. While we are welcomed into God’s Kingdom now, we await the full experience of his reality in the future. God’s reality breaks into our reality, but not as much or as often as we would like. The world is not yet as it should be. So we continue to pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The Kingdom has not yet arrived.
This is the tension we live in– the tension between the already and not yet of God’s Kingdom, his reality. In this in-between-time, our only path into God’s reality is Jesus himself. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus promises to guide us into experiences of God’s reality. He empowers us to live lives of the future here in the present. He calls us together into community so that we can learn to live in and demonstrate the unity, compassion, and justice that will epitomize the future.
