A Church that Moves the World

BY TIM WESTERMEYER

When we had our editorial meeting to plan for this issue of Inspire , the idea of an article about the future of the church seemed obvious. The theme, after all, was “Hope,” and hope suggests looking toward the future—and trusting that the future will be different and better than the present.

Fair enough. But when I started reflecting on this article, I realized that suggesting the church of tomorrow become “better” than the church of today didn’t make sense to me. Yes, the church of tomorrow will need to respond to the particular, specific, time-bound challenges of its day—the church always has done that— but I’m not sure that means the church itself will change.

As usual, one of my favorite authors G.K. Chesterton makes this point in a pithy and bracing way when he writes: “We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.”

So, how does the church do that? How do we, in Chesterton’s words, “move the world”? Well, by doing what the church has always done, and being what the church has always been. So here are some ways for us to think about what we do and who we are—not only for today, but also for tomorrow.

I’ll start by lifting up what have been called the three priorities of the Christian Church. They are: