Sunday by Sunday the stories of faith and freedom are the rock-solid foundations we build on. Gathered in community members experience forgiveness, are reconciled, learn to live in peace and to love God and neighbour. The narratives we draw on are our lineage, ancestors in faith who composed songlines found in the stories we draw on week by week. Our task is to discover what this means in our context. Discoveries about future directions result from the dialogue we have between those who have been there before and the realties we grapple with day by day.
The names and stories we share were grounded in particular moments of time and place. They tell us something of the environments, situations and events of the day, life changing moments when people of faith lived out their calling, not bound to the past but walking the pilgrim way.
And this is the challenge for us also. Being part of the family of faith we are called to discern our own response to the settings, the contexts we find ourselves in. We live out the good news as a people on the way, working with universal, recurring themes and convictions and interpreting these in relation our times and places.
Places, urban or rural, poor and rich, are host communities and these life events are integral to our calling. By implication congregation narratives express who we are, what we do and where we are. Purpose and directions are expressed through being missional in all we do, pastoral ministry, liturgical creativity and through the stewardship of our resources.
In articulating a commitment to host communities, Schreiter suggests that “the description of the environment is not something extrinsic to the theological process but is deeply part of it” (Schreiter 1998:26). Theological reflection involves “naming the praxis” and becomes the basis for descriptive theology (Browning 1983:31).
When congregations discover their narrative and match it with sacred texts and heritage, the process itself reshapes identity and forms strategies for the future (Schreiter 1998:38). In creating a local contextual theology congregations are “brought to the truth about our situation and ourselves and through this we are open to hear the gospel anew”. (Roxburgh 1997:59).
Local public theology practices express and demonstrate convictions. They arise out of a process of reflection, engagement and dialogue with surrounding culture, a genuine give and take where the world is permitted to speak for itself (Hall 1991:79). Hall suggests that in creating a social vision, congregations will discover their socio-historical habitat not only as a field to be investigated but partners in discernment and therefore a contributor to the theological task itself.
Browning, Don S. ed. 1983. Practical Theology: the emerging field in theology, church and world. San Francisco. Harper & Row.
Hall, Douglas John. 1991. Thinking the Faith. Minneapolis. Fortress Press.
Roxburgh, Alan J. 1997, The Missionary Congregation, Leadership, and Liminality. Harrisburg. Trinity Press International.
Schreiter, R. 1998. Theology in the Congregation: Discovering and Doing, in Nancy T. Ammerman, et. al. Studying Congregations: a New Handbook. Nashville. Abingdon Press.