I appreciated this reminder of what Epiphany is all about from my friend, Father Tony Clavier....
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The Feast of the Epiphany reminds us of our calling to be communities with The Message. Jesus didn’t tell us to construct local Upper Rooms, where we could huddle “for fear.” Instead he told us to “Go Tell” about Him. If evangelism is about recruitment, it is about recruiting people who will join us in using the local building as base camp from which we reach out into the community. Talking about a church “home” is really rather bad. Homes are comfortable places. They exist for us. The church exists for others.
It is really rather a waste of time concentrating on how we may make the church more efficient at drawing people in, or making the church more “attractive”. Rather we need to concentrate on learning the skills of apostleship. An apostle is a person chosen and given power of attorney to represent Jesus. This is our calling. That is why the Sunday after Epiphany takes us to Jesus’s baptism; His commitment to service.
We can’t take on our real calling as a church until we stop trying to cling onto the old ways, doing what we have always done for us, in smaller and smaller numbers until the light goes out. No one out there needs our church. They need our Lord.
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