Sentness - Part One

By: Paul Novak on: 03.07.06

One of the things that makes me want to stay at Small Boat Big Sea is “Sentness”...

It is such a rare treat – dare I say, a miracle even - to have this part of the weekly liturgy in a Christian community given that one of the overseers is head of the evangelism department at a theological college.

As anyone who attends the Sunday meetings knows, it has become my hobby horse. I lament those occasions when we run out of time for it. After several decades of church attendance this is the first place I have come across where such an explicit celebration of the imago dei is made – and it makes my heart sing. Let me tell you why.

Growing up in a protestant, evangelical church setting a heavy impression was placed on us of the urgency and primacy of “The Great Commission” (Matthew 28:19-20). There was nothing higher in the Christian life than to evangelise; preferably overseas as that involved the greatest sacrifice for the evangelist and the need there was greater.

In stereotypical terms millions of non-Christian people, when they died, were going to have an “out-of-body” experience that was so horrific it could not be described with words. The answer to Hamlet’s musing of “Sleep, perchance to dream” was a resounding “Yes, but not a dream - a never ending nightmare!” Therefore, all Christian people, anticipating the promised blissful dreams, were obliged – no, more than that - were commanded by their master to tell them about this future state at any cost.

Now, the biggest problem in this church setting was how to motivate the Christian people to do it. Living a rather dull, average life in the ‘here and now’ (but with the promise of an idealistic future one) and watching others enjoy a better life now (and not really grasping the extent of pain of their future one) didn’t really energise Christians for the task. Particularly if personal experiences of God in the present were nebulous, minimal and frivolous. And community experiences of the people of God were small-minded, insular and incongruent with the rest of every day life.

So it proved difficult to convince anyone of the impending doom and to join the saved ones and their current life experiences, let alone get the saved ones to undertake the task itself. Needless to say, fear and guilt were often used in both cases. The fact that anyone did manage to be convinced is a testimony to the active presence of the Spirit of God in the world.

The cyclical nature of the ‘convincing task’ came into play once someone was convinced that their future was bleak. They then had to be convinced to go out and convince others who weren’t convinced, as that was part of the great task given to those already convinced. And all the time, those attempting to do the convincing were honoured above all else; they were the true ones being sent to do the work we were all meant to do.

I’m deliberately painting a black and clichéd picture here, to give rise to my feelings that accompanied the situation – the feeling that the people of God were divided into first class and lower class “convincers”. Though I don’t mentally ascribe to those notions anymore, I carry those old emotions still. And I see it all too often in others around me.

Therefore “Sentness” is my delight. It is an emotional reaction in me that drives me to ensure this part of our liturgy is articulated well. It represents a beginning of a reversal of those years of bad thinking. And maybe, just maybe, it will allow a few of us small boaters to feel good about what we actually do on this planet.

<- Back to: SBBS Blogs