Thousand Acre Church

I am listening to a lecture series done at Regent University by N T Wright titled Romans in a Week.  The course title itself is hilarious.  Romans… in a WEEK.  Nevertheless, the lectures are crammed full of Wright-nuggets, and I’m loving it.  I’d highly recommend Regent’s audio files.

This morning some things intersected.  The subject of disagreement-and-unity has been in the background of most of the church life activities (including blogging) in which family participates.  Another ‘theme’ of spiritual formation for me lately has related to economics and use of economic resources in churches and Christian witness (i.e., the use of money to go on vacationary trips to India).  N T Wright smashed the two together this morning in a way have not heard before in the idea of ‘the Collection’.

Paul, the apostle, would travel around planting and nurturing new Christian communities.  These communities were mostly Gentile communities (though some were Jew/Gentile multiethnic).  The strong Jewish Christian communities, in places like Jerusalem, had theological disagreements with the mostly Gentile churches regarding the place of tradition Jewish symbols like circumcision, table fellowship, dietary laws, etc.  Paul, who sided with the Gentile churches, was rhetorically engaged in these theological debates, but he also did something VERY sneaky to affirm the unity of the Gentile and Jewish congregations.  He took up a Collection!  He asked Gentiles to give as they were able to the Collection that was to be sent to the persecuted church in Jerusalem.  The GIVING of the gifts to the Collection symbolically affirmed the commitment of the Gentile believers to consider the Jewish Christians as part of their spiritual family.  The ACCEPTANCE of those gifts recipricated that commitment.  Sweet, Paul.  Yur the man.

Assuming that a loty of this money was used to pay for food, clothing, and shelter in the Jewish Christian community, I think this was a creative and tangible way to maintain the unity of the church during some very serious theological disputes.  Could something like that happen today?  If a predominantly post-modern congregation took up a Collection to send to a fundamentalist church, what would happen?  Would the gift be accepted (or rejected like a gift from a lottery winner)?  Would the gift be collected (because we don’t want to pay for buildings and pastor salaries)?

I just thought was interesting to consider.  I’m inclined to think that there is an application of the Collection in the current paradigm shifting environment.  I could use some help teasing this out.