Just before leaving work on Friday afternoon I received my advanced copy Your Church is Too Safe by Mark Buchanan.
The subtitle for this book is Why Following Christ Turns the World Upside-Down. Buchanan believes there is a gap between the church Jesus envisioned, and the church that we know today. This book is part plea, part celebration, part roadmap, and part manifesto. It will help leaders guide others to a life of deeper faith and bolder action
Chapter 5 is entitled, “Going to Mordor.” Here’s an excerpt:
Traveler literally means “one who travails.” He labors, suffers, endures. A traveler – a travailer – …takes risks, some enormous, and makes sacrifices, some extravagant. He has tight scrapes and narrow escapes. He is gone a long time. If ever he returns he returns forever altered.
…A tourist, not so. Tourist means, literally, “one who goes in circles.”
…Mordor is as close to hell as any place short of hell gets. It’s a dangerous mission. It’s a hopeless mission, but their only hope. It’s a mission that can be accomplished not by armies, treaties, even strategies but only by a total and vulnerable incarnation: the smallest, weakest creatures, Frodo and his ever-loyal but none-too-bright companion, Sam, must don the disguise of evil and walk into the very heart of darkness, climb its Golgotha, and face its evil head-on. They must face it personally. Only then can that evil be broken and defeated, for them and for everyone. They are willing to lose their lives for the life of the world.
Which sounds like another mission we’re well acquainted with.
The point here: no one accomplishes such a mission, or joins it, or heralds it as a mere tourist. Only a travailer can. Only a fellowship of travailers can.
…Tourists make poor companions. Those who dwell in Rivendell form frail and shallow community. Only travailers – only those who venture out together on a dangerous mission – form community, community with sinews and sturdy bones. Travailers discover how hard and needed and beautiful and
life-giving community like that is. Together they risk much and give much and suffer much and love much.
I found these words inspiring. They reminded me that ministry is a mission and that perhaps I should expect it to feel like I’m going to Mordor sometimes. This passage also reminded me of how much I need those around me who share a common mission. I need the fellowship of other travailers.
You can pre-order Your Church is too Safe on Amazon, BN, ChristianBook.com and other sites found here. Look for it in stores in March.
