The "Postexilic" Church!?! (Redux)

So...

Tomorrow AM, I, and fellow C@PC'ers, Ben & Angie Walker, Andrew Moyer, Jerold & Christy Jay, along with Corey Godbey (Great Plains Hispanic Min. Coord.), Gabriel Marrero (Great Plains Hispanic Min. Evangelist), will all be heading North to Norfolk, Nebraska ,to be part of leading a District Training for Pastors and Lay Leaders from the Elkhorn Valley District of the Great Plains Annual Conference.  At this training we will be working from a "Zombie" message theme and talking about Awakening the UNdead, Revitalizing the Local Church, and Redefining the Mission Field.

Below, is a blog post from back in February of 2010 when I was first bouncing this idea of a Postexilic Church around.  I ran across this old entry as I prepared for this upcoming District Training.  Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.  And, as you do, let me know your opinion, is there still hope for mainline denominational churches like the United Methodist Church?

 The "Postexilic" Church!?! (Redux)

"'So, what the heck is a 'Postexilic' Church?'  A good friend of mine asked me that question as I tried to explain to him the concept of the re-awakening of denominational churches all across our state and nation. "That, is a good question," I said.  And, here is my answer as best as I can remember it...

I believe that there is an "awakening" going on in "mainline" denominations all across our nation.  And, as a Lifelong United Methodist, I refuse to believe that the "mainline" denominational church is terminal.  Oh yes, we may be, or may have been terminally ill. But, we are NOT dead!  We are NOT hopeless!  We are NOT beyond the reach of the Spirit and the Plan and the Purpose of God.  And, I absolutely refuse to believe that God is done with us.

We may have lost more life than we can even really conceive, or comprehend.  We may have made some significant blunders as we have "coasted" through the last 3-5 decades of our recent past history.  And, we may have purposefully closed far more churches than we have passionately planted.  But today, at this moment, there are local churches that are arising, in communities all across our nation.  And, they are awakening from their deathbeds and their comatose stupors, and they are breathing deeply again, praying passionately, taking drastic action, and refusing to be those who "keep on waiting... waiting for the world to change."

All across our nation there are churches, leaders and pastors arising.  They are "returning from the exile" if you will, and they are calling on God to show them the way to rebuild.  They are hearing the message of the Spirit deep in their hearts, just as the prophet Zechariah did in Zechariah 4:1-14 where he was given a message for another postexilic leader.  A message for a person of his time, a leader, a rebuilder, a visionary, a man named Zerubbabel.

That message "then" and "there", to a postexilic people, is our message "here" and "now" as the postexilic Church.  Here it is... There is sufficiency enough in God for the task at hand.  We can be rebuilt, reconstructed, reassembled, and restored to relevance and significance in the lives and the eyes of a people who are still searching for something far more vast and real than anything this world has afforded them.  Even though we are now truly the result of what we have done and that which we have been, we are not yet fully that which we will or can be.  And, the message now is that we can live to see the task completed. We can be a part of this great reawakening. We can be used by God in this enormous task of reconstruction.  And, as we let God use us in this work, the people who watch and see it will shout "Grace, grace to it!"

Our time is now.  The hope is returning.  I can see new life in the eyes of the body of Christ.

Rob Schmutz,
2/17/2010"