My church tradition can be a bit of a crocodile, but yours might be a bit of a giraffe.
Let me explain.
Our draft deanery vision calls on us to inspire and equip every member to "serve South Chelmsford" and to "tell of God's love ". But some of our churches have, historically, been more tell than show, more mouth than legs - that's what I call being a crocodile. The danger of this approach is of ourse that no one wants to spend much time with a crocodile. In the long term, oddly enough, churches that don't have a reputation for serving their community end up not getting a hearing for what they want to say. But others have been more like giraffes - draw a giraffe, and you could easiuly ignore the mouth altogether. I don't even know what noise they make. But they do have enormous long legs. Giraffe churches are good at practical, loving service, but because they don't tell people about Jesus there's the danger that the community gives all the glory and credit to them, and instead of saying "Surely God is at work among us", they say "what nice people they are!"
And the ideal, of course, is to have both mouth and legs, both service and proclamation, both words and deeds. In Hebrew this is called kavanah - sometimes translated integrity - having emotions, deeds, intentions and words all pointing in the same direction with perfect congruence. In French, Saint Francois de Sales called it la vie devote "nothing but a spiritual willingness and liveliness whereby love acts in us and we act in love in word and deed and prayer, spontaneously and with our emotions engaged." In Spanish, Rene Padilla calls it "mision integral", which is a clever phrase because it plays on the words for wholemeal bread, "pan integral" - we might say "wholemeal mission" or even "mission wi' nowt taken owt".
In terms of animals, though - well, I was trying to think of what animal has big legs and a big mouth. Maybe a frog? Or maybe a human being? Perhaps that's the point.
Andy Griffiths
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