What We Treasure

Written by Carl Greene

August 11, 2021

We treasure lots of things in life. We value material things which eventually wear out or break (I still mourn the loss of my childhood stuffed toy, Bucky Beaver). We treasure memories of family vacations or adventures we have gone on with friends—while we count the financial cost and the number of vacation days we have left. Yet, there are some treasures that we experience but are not our own—things of great value that are the possession of another.

Our missional purpose as a church and as a Conference of churches is a treasure that we steward. We are called to join God in His work of actively advancing His Kingdom—we are stewards of the work the He has called us to. In the words of Leslie Newbigin, we are called to be a “sign, instrument, and foretaste of the reign of God.”[1]

We are called to be a sign of God’s Kingdom—demonstrating that God’s reign and rule is active in history and the present. We do this through Gospel Saturation. We point people to God through gospel proclamation and demonstration.

We are called to be an instrument of God’s Kingdom—where we participate with God in bringing his rule and reign to broader groups of people and into more dimensions of daily life. We do this as a General Conference through Church Planting as God opens doors. We participate as an instrument through Leadership Development where we discover, develop, and deploy emerging leaders ready to engage in missional work.

We are also called to be a foretaste of God’s Kingdom—where we provide a taste of what the fullness of God’s Kingdom will be like. This is sort of like taste testing ice cream—we give an idea of what the amazing flavor is—yet know that the best is yet to come when we will one day receive the entire bowl. We live this out through Church Revitalization in which we increasingly live as Kingdom Family. We experience a taste of Kingdom fullness as we increasingly experience unity through diversity.

God has blessed us with the treasure of His work: actively advancing His Kingdom. May we pray for this work and passionately join together in serving Him through this work. Want to learn more about the work? The SDB Coordinating Leadership Team will be hosting a Virtual Q&A Webinar on Thursday, August 19th at 8:00 pm Eastern where we will talk about this missional journey that we are on. We would love to be able to share with you and receive your questions. We are excited about the journey ahead!

For information about who the current SDB Coordinating Leadership Team is, please follow this link: https://www.seventhdaybaptist.org/leadership/.

To register for the SDB Coordinating Leadership Team Q&A Webinar, please click here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HWjjTEdLTum2XC0lxD1iag.

Photo courtesy of Sam Greene.

[1] Newbigin, Lesslie. 1995. The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company.

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