Message from our Bishop

EMPOWERING THE LOCAL PARISH AND MISSION

Church is an open and welcoming community. It is never a closed entity. What is local is real. The Church lives and ministers through the local units- either the local parish or the local mission field. There is a growing tendency these days to institutionalize all bodies and to continue a stereo-typed ministry. The cry that members of the Main- Line churches are going to charismatic groups is an indication of that. The Church is in the world in time and space. Therefore the local units become alive and dynamic only when the local responds to the life of the Local community and to the contemporary events.

Mission belongs to God. It means God is, Mission. It can be understood as the outflow of God’s love. The entire creation is an outflow of God’s love. This indicates that the entire creation manifests in the Mission of God. Whenever a life is born, it reveals that God’s mission is continuing. The local parish is in mission. It is wrong to narrow it down to say that ‘we have a mission’. It is not an appendix but claims the whole life. All of us are in mission together with God. The love of God embraces us, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthens us and the Guidance and fellowship of the Holy Spirit lead us in Mission. It is this realization that helps the local Parish and Mission field to engage in Mission for a fruitful ministry.

Local Parishes and Congregations:

Each Parish  and  congregation  represents a worshipping community in a local area. It has a representative nature. It represents the entire human community in the particular geographical area.  Our endowed task is to be the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World and not to become institutionalized and commercialized entities.  For this we are to be a credible Christian Community within the wider human community, always speaking the truth in love and promoting the intrinsic values of life at all levels.  Christian presence is important.  It is greatly important to make our presence a healing, reconciling and transforming one.  Thus the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is meant for everyone, must be held aloft in the life of the local parishes and congregations.

Here, I feel the burden of telling all of us that our personal life with the Lord of the Church is very important.  ‘Abide in me and I will abide in you’, said Jesus. (St. Jn. 15) without me, you can do nothing….  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless; you abide in Me.  Further in Vs. 16 we read: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain …..”  Our life has a witness and it has to come from our living and dynamic relationship with God.  Please take some time everyday for personal devotion, Bible Study and prayer.  May the Holy Spirit, which is also the Spirit of Truth, lead us from Truth to higher dimensions of Truth and empower us to lead a qualitative life, witnessing Truth, Peace and Justice.

Each local parish or congregation can be understood as a ‘family of families’.  St. Paul writing to the Church at Ephesus wrote: I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named…. Eph 3; 14, 15.  The witness of the family in the local area is of great importance as we commit ourselves for the service of the Lord.  In our times, families in general are in great crisis.  Many try to sweep this under the carpet of secrecy.  That is no solution.  This situation must compel us to position our families according to the will and purpose of God.  Does our family, as a unit, kneel before God every day?  A family that prays together, stays together.  Please take family prayer seriously and look to the Lord together for His blessings.  Ps 128 reminds us ‘Blessed is the one who fears the Lord, who walks in His Ways’.  Choosing a partner for someone in the family is equally important.  Two good persons need not make a good marriage.  What we need is not only ideal life-partners but also responsive companions.  Disharmony in the family works on our children like slow poison.  Elders fight for their rights, not realizing that ultimately it is the children who will lose their home and parents.  Family life is to grow on a strong foundation, Jesus Christ, and everyday life is to be an adventure of faith.

An important aspect of church life on which our local parishes and congregations need to concentrate is our Sunday Schools.  I have a feeling that a good number of our children are not attending Sunday school regularly these days. I request you to attend to it in your local area.  The Holy Bible is a training manual for fullness of life.  The boy Jesus and the Nazareth Family are shining examples that help us to clearly understood the role of the Family and local Parish in raising up a child, so that he or she will sit with the Teachers of the Law to learn more!  What a tragedy it will be for our generation and the next if we ignore this part.

The younger Generation: 

The ‘Generation Next’ has become the focal point of our attention these days.  I am not only speaking about the Youth Ministry in our Students’ Centers but also of the youth in our midst, in our local parishes.

The ascendancy of materialism, together with its complement of consumerism, has aggravated the difficulties of the young to lead a spiritual life.  The hallmark of materialism is its superficiality.  It keeps changing.  Spirituality grows only in a sphere of stability.  St. Paul exhorts Timothy: “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity”.  1 Tim 4: 12.

We should give importance to the teenagers and the youth.  As local parishes, we have spiritual authority to correct and discipline the growing children.  Spirituality in their life depends on the way they are treated and also the way they are brought up in our families and in our parishes.  Spirituality is also envisaged in terms of relationships; our relationship with God and with others.  (Lk 10: 27).  We are reminded of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus asking about eternal life.  He was learned and religious.  But he found it difficult to obey Jesus.  Obedience is imbued with the spirit of sacrifice.  No human being is completely free.  The notion that ‘possessions give you freedom’ is only a myth.  Let us remember we can access the horizons of possibilities only through obedience to the Master, the Lord of the Universe.  A Christ-centered person nurtures happy and healthy relationships.  Wise is the person who understands that no one can own life absolutely but can only carry out the stewardship of what God has given us in life.

Today, young people are too busy earning their livelihoods in an ever-swelling desire for the tools and toys of modern life, as if that is the only meaningful way to enjoy the gift of life.  I feel sad to note that parents also drive our youth towards this mode of living.  Let us beware that any sort of conditioning kills their freedom of choice.  Remember that it is the responsibility of parents to lead them to Christ.  This is what we can do in our parishes and students’ centers as well.  But this is to be done in the spirit of freedom.  Freedom to choose is the essence of spirituality.  There is a joy in being with God.  Freedom is God’s gift and it can be safeguarded only by being in communion with God.  This is what our youth need to know and experience in life, particularly in relation to our worshipping communities.

Moving onward to make a difference: 

Acts of the Apostles remind us that the Church at Jerusalem stood with the missionaries by praying and supporting the mission with all necessary means.  Later Paul and Barnabas also enjoyed the physical, moral and spiritual support.  The apostles came back to report to the Church about their fruitful ministry of not only proclaiming the Good News but also the establishment of numerous local churches as worshipping and witnessing communities.  The new centers were left to grow, multiply and establish further new congregations in their vicinity.  Here we need to observe that the believers were not left merely in uprooted positions, but also that they were planted in God’s farm to enjoy the fellowship and privilege of a worshipping and growing congregation.  We also need to give attention to the issue of recognizing them as full-fledged parishes wherever possible.  The question is not simply to build places of Worship, but to build up the people of God in relation to other people and in the larger context of the Church steeped in the values of the Kingdom of God. 

The formation of local parishes in mission fields cannot ignore the social involvement of the Church in the lives of the people.  Proclamation of good news (Great Commission) has to go hand in hand with the liberation of the oppressed from captivity (Nazareth Manifesto).  Most of the new believers in our Mission fields are economically poor.  The Church representing Jesus Christ must be bold champions of the poor.  While India ranks 128th country in poverty among the 177 countries in the world, it is a known fact that 4 Indians are on the list of the top 10 billionaires in the world.  What a paradox!  We know clearly that poverty can be wiped off if humans have a mind for it.  It stands to reason to perceive that this will not happen overnight.  But that should never be an excuse for any delay in action. Jesus is the unique and unparalleled champion of the poor who demonstrated by his birth and by his practical ministry his identity with the poorest of the poor and his call for the oppressed to set them free.  Mother Teresa made it her principle of life.  We must not hesitate to enter into the mission of challenging poverty.

We have some avenues to confront illiteracy, enter into public health, organize awareness programmes, build houses, give vocational training help in the Marriage Aid programmes and the like.  This will be effective and bear more fruit only when our local parishes and congregations take these programmes seriously, supporting them with local initiatives and undertaking selfless work for the benefit of the entire community around.  If the Church is ineffective in any front, it means it is ineffective at the local level.  I want you  to understand this seriously. 

The need of the hour is to equip the local parishes and congregations with necessary tools of effective and visible Christian existence.  Will the four-fold function of worship, nature, proclamation and diakonia (service) become a reality in all our parishes?  If so Church as  a whole will emerge as a powerful instrument in the total community of God, which we Christians refer to as the Kingdom of God.  It will then move forward with a difference.

May the Lord help us to be His Church in carrying out His Mission in our local context. 

MAR THEODOSIUS