Christian Mysteries and Practical Ministry

In faithful Christian churches, we believe in ministry and we believe in mystery, usually as two separate realities.  The ministry aspect is often seen as the “practical” aspect, while the mystery aspect is seen as “theoretical.”  The Trinity is a doctrine to believe and to proclaim, but, we think, doesn’t have much to do with the everyday life of a struggling married couple or a burned out drug addict.  The Incarnation is a glorious truth of the Gospel, but doesn’t seem like a good tool to pull out of the toolbox when teaching about raising children.   Sacraments are wonderful moments of grace, but aren’t often seen as relevant to politics.  Creation and re-creation are something to be affirmed, but not the stuff of a talk at the youth camp.  Redemption is something God does in the mystery of Christ, but appears to have nothing to do with world hunger or homelessness.

So we plod along, affirming the mysteries to be true and to be revealed to us by God, holding firm to orthodox articles of faith, while seldom seeing the connection between those very articles of faith and the lives of the Faithful themselves.  When it comes to the problems and realities of everyday life, we pull discrete biblical principles, distilled and de-contextualized, and plop them down at the feet of the people.  These biblical principles, disconnected from the mysteries of the Christian Faith, become a kind of new Law, and the bigger picture of Christian reality is obscured.

When we minister this way, the people begin to see the Christian faith as follows.  First, Church is something you should go to as many Sundays as possible.  Why?  Because that’s what Christians do and so you do it.  Second, when you encounter a challenge or problem, you try to remember all the passages and principles you hear every Sunday or from Christian radio or books, and apply those.  Why?  Because God wrote the Bible and he’s smarter than you.  Third, you will fail at that sometimes, but God will give you grace to keep getting up and trying again.  Why?  He’s like that.  And then, in passing, we say,  don’t forget to remain orthodox and biblical by affirming that you believe the same kind of stuff other orthodox, biblical Christians believe about God and Christ, etc.

The “why” questions are being left unanswered in many of our churches, in the name of being practical or relevant. We are telling people to do and to act and to serve, to give and to love, but we aren’t telling them the “why” behind all of this.  We are addressing felt needs with quick solutions instead of relating felt needs to the Christian mysteries.  So, in an honest attempt to faithfully live out the Christian life, people go about trying to do what we tell them, all the while wondering, “Why exactly am I doing this?”  And as we all know, they are dropping out of church in record numbers, often seeking a spirituality which provides meaning to their lives, and escaping the isolating moralism of our churches.

In this way the Faith is disconnected from the very lives of the Faithful!  The great mysteries of Christianity, the great Meta-narrative which tells the Great Story and which makes sense of our very lives, is turned into a dogmatic set of propositions which are required for assent, but which have no other purpose than to demonstrate that one is orthodox or biblical.   They stay in the realm of theoretical philosophy or theology, never penetrating the everyday life or mind of the average Christian.  And it is our responsibility, we who minister in the Christian Church, to hold those mysteries up for the people to see and then to show who they make sense of our lives.

But what if we refused to see the mysteries as impractical or theoretical, but rather as quite the opposite:  practical and tangible.  In fact, we truly do believe that it is the Christian mysteries which are real and that our existential perception of reality is what is false.  That being the case, exposure to and experience in the mysteries of Christ will bring us and the people we are called to lead closer to reality in our lives than anything else.  And finding meaning and reality has a very satisfying and practical effect on our lives.

Of what “practical application” is all of this?  That is always the question of the moment, isn’t it?  No one wants to waste time on theoretical discussions when there is a life to be lived.  And yet, by ‘practical’ we mean “that which can be used effectively” and by ‘application’ we mean “that which is directly relevant to and useful for a real life situation.”   The biblical and classic Christian to application is not a “life lessons” technique, because that badly misunderstands the nature of fallen humanity.  Preaching about the Gospel and then tacking on an “application section” at the end is arguably the least useful way to apply the Gospel practically. In order to break through the morass of modern moralism, it is time to re-envision what is truly effective and relevant to people, the very mysteries of the Faith they are called to believe and to live.    What are these mysteries revealed for if they are not “practical” and “applicable”?

What if, instead of filling people’s minds with three steps to a healthy marriage and seven steps to being a better witness, we filled their minds and hearts with the Mysteries of Christ and the Gospel, and then showed how our marriages and our witness were related to those mysteries? For example, my wife and I recently attended a weekend marriage retreat, which was wonderful, except for the glaring reality that the union of husband and wife was never once grounded in or even related to the mutually self-giving relationship of the Holy Trinity.  Furthermore, the fact that marriage points us to the mystery of Christ and his Church was not made plain, or that I was aware, mentioned at all.  We got a lot of practical tips and they were very helpful.  But what we didn’t get was a sense of our marriage as a part of the story of God’s redeeming mysteries.

In answering the “why” questions, we would see people begin to see themselves as a part of a great story that is being played out even today, and to connect the ups and downs of everyday life to the God who make them, redeems them, and loves them.  And in being carried away with that story, they will see how their lives, their relationships, and their future is all related to God’s love and care and their place in his creation.  This is very challenging, yet very simple, and it starts by simply leading and preaching like we actually believe what we say we believe about God, even when we are talking about human life.