The Relational Mission

Does believing in the Trinity have any import in life, in the church, in our leadership? Of course it has direction implications on our statements of faith and in some of our sermons, but is that it? Let me pose it this way: If we did not espouse the Trinity, what would change about the day-to-day life of the church? Theological reflection about the Triune God opens up a new imagination about who God is. It moves us beyond our man-made images of gods to see what has been revealed in the Incarnation and through the sending of the Spirit. John Franke puts it this way: "The statement 'God is love' refers primarily to the eternal, relational, intratrinitarian fellowship among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who together are the one God. In this way, God is love within the divine reality, and in this sense, through all eternity, God is the social Trinity, the community of love. (Franke, The Character of Theology , 67). But what does this have to do with anything?  Beyond ...

Years ago, I took a class from Eugene Peterson called Spiritual Theology. At one point he said, "The most spiritual thing to do might be simply changing your wife's tire on her car." I've never forgotten his words. In his lectures, he had a way of tearing down the pomp and circumstance of ambitious dreams and root life in God in the reality of everyday life. Irenaeus of Lyon was a church leader from the second century who spoke of the Father's two hands, the Son and the Spirit, as the mediating presence of God with us. The Bible speaks of the Son as the Word of God and the Spirit as the Wisdom of God. But it is interesting to me how the Son and the Spirit have come and continue to come not in abstract ways, which is how we usually think of word and wisdom. Instead they come through faithful presence, as hands extended in agape love from the Father. I think of the story of John 13 where Jesus washed the feet. I think of the fruit of the Spirit with agape listed...