Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- All Categories 13.8K
- General Category 10.9K
- General Announcements 184
- Faith Issues 3.4K
- Coptic Orthodox Church 2.5K
- Personal Issues 1.4K
- Prayer Requests 423
- Random Issues 1.8K
- Introductions 294
- Non-Orthodox Inquiries 232
- Youth Corner 606
- Hymns 2.5K
- Hymns Discussion 2.5K
- Technicial Difficulties 368
- Technical Topics 368
orthodox mission
this is so we don't derail the other thread talking about this!
i don't think we should call some churches 'mission churches' as it takes the focus away from the fact that we should all share our faith.
so far we don't have this concept in the uk, and i hope we don't go in this direction.
there is room for all of us to both help new immigrants who don't speak english (or the country's language, for european churches)
and to bring those in from outside who are missing the richness and depth of orthodox Christianity.
:-)
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Like Sayedna says:
"The aim of mission can't be anything less than the deification, unification and reconciliation of all churches and the whole world into the unity of the measure and the stature of the fullness of Christ. It is not humanization or socialization but divinization, which is social transformation in the model of Holy Trinity, which may be called Trinification. The aim of mission is not only Theosis but along with it the establishment of the Kingdom of God.”
Metropolitan Geevarghese Mar Osthathiose. “Sharing God and a Sharing World” (India: ISPCK & CSS, 1995) 150-152.
Or Early Second Century Literature: Letter of Diognetus
http://livingorthodoxtheology.blogspot.com/2013/02/early-second-century-literature-letter_10.html
And
http://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20010522_diogneto_en.html
His Grace Bishop David speaks(/spoke at a retreat) very highly of Fr. Anthony, and I think that's enough confirmation for me that what he's doing is fine.
Sometimes I wonder if suppressing the teaching about this "goal" and "purpose" has led to the focus on mission as activity or focus on activities that show our growth and success? Or maybe activities that encourage good feelings or the popularity of touchy-feely concepts of Christianity?
“When theology is false, then Christianity is reduced to activities.”
Fr. John S. Romanides
"Nowadays, especially in the U.S., the Church is perceived as an enterprise, an activity. The priest constantly harasses people to do something for the Church. And their activism is measured in quantitative criteria: how many meetings, how much money, how much “doing.” I’m not sure it is all necessary. What is dangerous is not the activity itself, but the reduction of the Church, the identification of this activity with life in the Church. The idea of the Church, the sacramental principle of its life, lies in taking us away from activity (“let us put aside all earthly cares”), in making us commune with a new life, eternity, the Kingdom. And the idea of the Church, the principle of its life, also demands that we would bring into the world this experience of a new life so that we would purify this world, illumine it with the non-worldliness of the experience of the Church. Quite often the opposite happens: we bring activism into the Church, the fuss of this world, and submit the Church, poison its life with this incessant fuss. What happens is not that life becomes Church, but the Church becomes worldly."
Fr Alexander Schmemann, Journals, Thursday, February 18, 1982
"A group of Orthodox seminarians came to visit the mission...One of them very upset commented that there is no point in what the mission was doing, unless we made people became Orthodox. Later reflecting on this father commented that this future priest difficulty comes from "his anthropology. It is not patristic." God's love for us humans has no agenda. What a privilege it is that we love and exist in the same way God does."
Memories from an Orthodox Urban Mission
"The first thing that must be said about acquiring this spirit of service is that it will not happen by simply reading about Christ’s acts of service in the Gospel and trying, with no preparation, to imitate Him. The fact of the matter is that the Lord did not simply perform acts of service; rather, His deeds of love flowed naturally from His gracious character. His deeds reveal His identity. If we try to analyze the activity of Christ in the Gospel with a view to implementing a programme of Christ-like service to others, we will fail. Acts of service that do not have their origin in a gracious character are not credible and are often undertaken for the wrong reasons. Unfortunately, the wounded human heart is capable of sin even in performing good deeds if it is not being purified, enlightened and strengthened by the Holy Spirit. We come face to face with a fundamental problem: we cannot act as Christ acts through observation and implementation alone. We cannot acquire the spirit of service as we would a skill or a discipline. We must instead receive Christ’s life and then struggle to allow His character to emerge in us. This is why the Orthodox Church carefully distinguishes between the imitation of Christ and the life in Christ. The former allows us to learn about Christianity; the latter allows us to become Christians."
Fr Maxym Lysack, Serving Through Outreach
"We are taught that we must seek success individually, for we are in a society where we must compete, or die. This means that we are obsessed by efficacity, by work and by recognition. We want to be recognized, not necessarily for the value of what we are doing, but rather to be promoted. This is success. Success is evaluated in money and power. This is what we are continually being taught right from childhood. Thus, in every field, we are all pushed by the sense of promotion. We must get on, must have success, power and riches....
We...have the cult of liberty and of liberalism, with some innate and phobic fear of anything that might smell of socialism and of community in the larger sense. We are told that we must have the signs of success in the quality of our houses, cars and various other ornaments or furniture inside our houses. The whole aspect of prestige and recognition by the neighbours is very, very fundamental in our society which has pushed us to a very individualized culture.
It follows that very quickly the family is fragmented. What I mean by a fragmented family is that old people must be put in old people's homes; mentally handicapped people must have their own residences and physically handicapped people must too. Delinquents must have their place also. All those who are the marginal ones are categorically placed together in residences where necessary specialists can be hired to provide programs to govern their existence, and this permits the nuclear family, husband, wife and two children just to be together about their business.
The children of the family are taken up with children's activities, clubs and youth movements. The wife can join a bridge club, take a part time job or do volunteer work at the local hospital or for meals on wheels. The husband frequently becomes obsessed by this idea of promotion which is very deeply ingrained. He must go up the ladder or he just might go down, and this can be very serious, particularly when they have bought a lot on credit without any money. What if he should lose his job? So, he has to become a slave to the system because everything has been bought before he had the money. Sometimes the husband and wife will be so divided in their activities that there is an even greater fragmentation....We are taken up in a world of activities; we have to do and we have forgotten how to be. And because we are always doing, we get into a vicious circle, with the result that relationships begin to break down....
When there is despair, I begin to throw myself into activity in order to forget my pain. I do and I do and I do and one day, I retire. Then, having nothing to do, I fall sick. This is the story of many people who are caught up in the world of doing, because in reality, to do, can be to flee. Doing should flow from my being, but frequently I do, because I am frightened that I do not really exist sufficiently. Maybe in this world of intense noise, I am running away. Maybe I'm terribly frightened of silence, frightened because in silence I meet myself, and I confront myself. Maybe also in the silence I meet my God.'"
Jean Vanier, Excerpts from Monograph No. 4: Learn to Live. Edited by Sue Mosteller. (Richmond Hill: Daybreak Publications/PrintOne, 1978)
Recently on CNN there was a very fascinating segment on al-Noor Orphanage in Iraq that echoes a similar kind of compassion.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/07/world/meast/iraq-baghdad-orphans/
It is very inspiring and humbling since such love can be very human and very divine. They can break down all our boxes and categories.
Maybe in the mystery of compassion we often see glimpses of the majesty of love and hope which I hope is kerygmatic and deeply Orthodox.
St Teresa of Calcutta, Lilian Thrasher, Damian of Hawaii, Jean Vanier, Mother Gabriella of India, Mama Maggi, St Maria of Paris, Liqaa Al Aboudi all seem to resonate with Kenosis and healing. May God preserve and magnify the saints and manifest all His wonders in them.
"The poor are our masters"
St John the Merciful
"Do you want to honor Christ’s body? Do not neglect him when he is naked; do not, while you honor him here with silken garments, neglect Him perishing outside of cold and nakedness. For He that said “This is my body,” and by His word confirmed the fact, also said, “You saw me hungry and you did not feed me” and “Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.” This [the body of Christ on the altar] has no need of coverings, but of a pure soul; but that requires much attention. Let us learn therefore to be strict in life, and to honor Christ as He Himself desires….
For what is the profit, when His table indeed is full of golden cups, but He perishes with hunger? First fill Him, being hungry, and then abundantly deck out His table also. Do you make for Him a cup of gold, while you refuse to give him a cup of cold water? And what is the profit? Do you furnish His table with cloths bespangled with gold, while you refuse Him even the most basic coverings? And what good comes of it?
And these things I say, not forbidding munificence in these matters, but admonishing you to do those other works, together with these, or rather even before these. Because for not having adorned the church no one was ever blamed, but for not having helped the poor, hell is threatened, and unquenchable fire, and the punishment of evil spirits. Do not therefore while adorning His house overlook your brother in distress, for he is more properly a temple than the other."
St John Chrysostom
"Houses of hospitality must be built for the poor in every city of every diocese"
Canon LXX of The Captions of the Arabic Canons Attributed to the Council of Nicea.
"When sister churches listened to him speak, they really were taken aback at how unOrthodox his speech was. It was quite an embarrassment."
Could you please elaborate?
Take for instance the CYC lecture. Practically speaking, it's not really for a "first-grader", but it is a pluralistic lecture that can appease any religion really. I'm even astonished at how much Christ is not mentioned in the lecture. How do you know God in the same manner as knowing your own spouse? Abouna said he is no scholar so he does not know how we can "know God." Excuse me? You don't need to be a scholar to answer this question. God made Himself known through the Logos Incarnate. Furthermore, we have an example of how we "know" God just as much as Adam "knew" his wife, and that is by the Eucharist. Not one mention of Christ or the Eucharist. He made good points that in order to know someone, it is also mutual, to be known, and to do it with vulnerability. Where then is Christ in all this? Where is the Eucharist? Where is deification? For a priest, the obvious was completely missing, and for him to say "I don't know how" is strange, when he imparts to those in the church His Body and Blood.
From what I saw, his audience was not an Orthodox Christian audience, let alone a Christian one. His audience would might as well have been Sufis, Hindus, Unitarians, etc. They too don't know how to know God, but they know to know Him rather than about Him. On the surface, the lectures look good, but it's like a good-looking wine-bottle that is empty. The bottle may be expensive, but where's the good wine?
As Christians, we have standards, in our hymns and in our sermons. If your audience is Orthodox Christian, is expect a priest to say, "Yes, we do know how to know God, and as Orthodox Christians it is to be engrafted into the divine life in Christ by the Eucharist through the Holy Spirit, and knowing Christ, we also know the Father. For if Abouna were to say "I don't know how," Christ would answer him as he would to Phillip, "how long have you been with me, and you still do not know?" How long Abouna, have you prayed the Eucharist, and you still are not aware?
That is how people complain. I think Abouna Anthony is a great person, but he seems to entrenched into Protestant sources he forgot how to give the higher standards of an Orthodox sermon. Anything lower than that is like a church with no sacraments, i.e. Protestant.
Final thought: What if he doesn't know he's preaching in a protestant manner? I am starting to see that most of the teachings I have heard are protestanty in a way and I'm just starting to differentiate between a protestant sermon and orthodox sermon. So what if most of what he was taught growing up was protestanty and he's just reteaching what he learned the wrong way?
Also these sermons are popular so isn't that expanding the influence of our Church? Like our youth like this stuff and stay in the church and are more likely to suggest these sermons with their nonOrthodox friends. They do make things more easy to understand and are not just scholarly and intellectual faith right?
Also do people really need to know all the terms and big orthodox words to be saved? Isn't it more important that the sermons be practical and personal rather than technical and theological?
Like we're not a university so we don't really need all that high theology which just makes things complicated. We didnt have abounas in the past with theological phds and we survived so many years so we dont need to have theological abounas today. Isn't a simple practical Biblical message for the week more important and attractive?
Another form of "simple is better" can be a slight variation: "Taeta and Gido don't know the hymns and they are not shamas kabeer...But they are simple and therefore saintly."
Or "Taeta and Gido are not theologians they're simple and don't need to have all these arguments and big terms"
But what about the question of not worrying about the means as long as the people love God? Like as long as we're bringing them to the Church it doesn't matter what material we use right? As long as the means are not sinful of course and can be identified as Christian.