Thoughts on the church and power

I'm enjoying receiving daily 'thoughts' from the 'inward/outward' site of the Church of the Savior in Washington DC. You even get a chance to interact! Here's one thought they sent a couple of days ago and my interaction - these can be viewed at http://www.inwardoutward.org/?p=620


Moving From Talk to PowerWritten by admin January 24th, 2008 in on the way
By John Perkins
If we as Christians can see the issues of our day—the poverty, the racism, war and injustice—and if we can use the skills and resources that we get from our training at school or on the job, and if we can really be open to being equipped by the Spirit of God, then we will be used. We must lie on our beds at night and wrestle with how we can individually and collectively bring our faith from talk to power, how we can bring our faith and works to bear on the real issues of human need.
I believe that right now we are facing a most difficult time in history. We are discovering that old strategies have failed and that the new ones, or rediscovered ones, will not let us hold onto our old lifestyles.
Source: A Quiet Revolution

and...
Martin Stewart Jan 24th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Parts of John’s words work for me and other parts cause concern - without a doubt he is right to say that our faith should move to action. But what kind of action. His use of the word power (instead of action) makes me nervous. Being a Power is not the calling of the church - rather we are to call the powers to account and remind them of their vocation which is to serve. Excellent work on this has been done by Marva Dawn in recent times, and the likes of Jacques Ellul and William Stringfellow in the past 50 years. If we become a power and powerful then we will oppress, we will cause injustice, etc. Our posture before the world is that of Christ - who acted, spoke out and exposed the powers, and then submitted to them. He never called us to power, but to serve.