Sacred Roots Workshop

40 Sacred Roots Workshop: Retr ieving the Great Tradi t ion in the Contemporary Church

2. Not blind acceptance of the past, no matter what: The ancient, undivided Church was not a perfect community.

3. Not ape-ish conformity to everything they said and did: We must be Berean whenever we look at any phase of Church history (cf. Acts 17.11).

4. Not retreating from the constant need to be ever vigilant to worldly impacts upon us: “reformed and always reforming”

5. Not ignoring the influence of history on the Church: More than 2,000 years have passed since the Church of Jesus Christ was formed, and the Spirit of God has been active throughout that entire history, with all its speed bumps and bruises included. B. What the Great Tradition consists of: Sacred Roots represents our rediscovery the biblical Story as articulated and lived in the ancient Christian tradition (an attempt to learn from arguably the most productive generation of Christians in church history!). 1. In TUMI’s effort, the late Robert Webber played a key role in our contextualization of this for urban spirituality, in this rediscovery: “Inspired by the Chicago Call of 1977, and the more recent Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future , documents both penned and inspired by the late Dr. Robert Webber and his supporters, Sacred Roots seeks to retrieve in broad outline the Christian faith and practice developed from the Scriptures from the time of the Lord Jesus Christ to the middle of the fifth century. We seek to understand this tradition as the sacred roots of our Christian identity, and are committed to exploring ways that this tradition may renew evangelical faith and mission in the cities among the poor” (Dr. Don L. Davis,