The Church can change the world

In church on Sunday during Fusion (our junior high youth group) we were talking about the purpose of the church. We looked at the early church in the book of Acts and talked through why the church exists. These junior high kids get it in a pretty impressive way. Their big takeaway form the whole thing was the point that "The church can change the world", (for the better) and each kid had to make sure they explained this point to our pastor.

I'd read this article that Will referenced and I've been thinking a lot lately on what the church's role is in politics. How should the church engage political systems in order to have an impact, without trying to hoard power for itself and become the political system it's trying to influence. On the flight out to Seattle, I was listening to this message from Rob Bell (Mars Hills Church in Grand Rapids) on Politics and the Church. The biggest part that hit me was this quote from Rob

The church exists primarily for the well being of everyone who is not a part of her.
-Rob Bell

There's this scary opinion out there of people that say, "In order to really be a Christian, you must hold the same political beliefs as I do, because I care more about this area than you do, and that makes me more of a christian."

Rob talks about the role of the church in politics, but also what unity looks like in a church with differing opinions. He gets into Galatians 3 and Ephesians 2:15 around unity:

What if we could be the kind of church where in a broken, fractured culture where there are all of these debates, opinions and television networks devoted to people ripping each other's head's off, What if we could be the kind of church where the protestor and the solider came together at the cross saying, "We have a bunch of things that we disagree on, but between us we have the resurrected Jesus and that's bigger and that's better. " What if the church could be the kind of place these people socially, economically, educationally, politically are all over the spectrum but they have this unity that can't be explained and it's so powerful."

Great message. I don't have any real conclusion here. More just that I'm thinking some of it through.

Tags: Mars Hill Church, Grand Rapids, Rob Bell, Politics, Fusion, Christianity