Comments on: A Mystagogy for the Missional Church

By: davidfitch

davidfitch — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 03:06:27 +0000

Thanks for these various comments! and Len, thanks for yoru suggestions. I had to make this more explicit (Matt 25:37ff) so I added the 8th mystery. Thanks!!

By: len

len — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:35:46 +0000

I had to read this twice to be sure I wasn’t as mystified as I feared I might be.. and now I think the element I would add would be something like this: “The Mystery of Encountering Christ among the Poor.” At the moment this is the center of our community …

By: Chad

Chad — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:07:21 +0000

I took a class on mystagogical preaching last year and I have to say that it definitely changed my idea of communicating sacred action. The beauty of mystagogy (originally) was to take items and actions that at the onset can appear mundane, and transform them into a spiritual, mystical reality that transmits multiple levels of meaning to the people. As my prof tried taught us to start thinking this way, we coined the term uber-sight”.

I think that traditional (Patristic) and your interpretation of mystagogy had a definite place within the missional church. The idea of building a community around actions that seem “dull” to others,confusing or just the kind of things that churches do should be given spiritual reality-ultimately because they have one. Holy practices are something that the church does, and in doing so defines itself and its distinctives.

By: Phil Henry

Phil Henry — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:28:27 +0000

In my tradition, those who observe a baptism are called upon to “improve” their baptism (Westminster Larger Catechism 167). I like this definition of mystagogy: “life after baptism.”

Good reference. I like mining things from the RC tradition, in the spirit of the Apostle’s and Nicene Creed: “one holy apostolic and catholic church.”

Blessings.

By: JR Rozko

JR Rozko — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:57:14 +0000

Although I note that you are not speaking for the other pastors or leaders within the community of Life on the Vine, I can’t tell you how excited I am to get to be part of a community where people think like this and try to flesh it out in practices. See ya in a few weeks.