Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

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Chur ch Mat ter s : Ret r i ev i ng the Great Trad i t i on

the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. ~ Romans 11.16-18 (ESV)

1. It defines our doctrinal, liturgical, communal, and missional distinctives .

a. In sharing a spirituality, we can delineate our core doctrines and theology.

b. We can specify our liturgical emphasis.

c. We can articulate our missional distinctives.

2. It outlines our story , and prescribes the ways in which others may be grafted into it.

a. We can know our common narrative, and how it relates historically to the Church.

b. It spells out our formative convictions and practices that the Spirit used to create “us” in the first place.

c. It relates our individual stories to our larger church story, and then to the greatness of God’s Story.

3. It scripts out what it means to be “of us” and “not of us,” 1 John 2.19 (ESV) – They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.