The Church is ALIVE At Union-PSCE!

Dr. Brian Blount is the president of Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Virginia.

On May 7, 2008, during his Inauguration sermon, he asked us a simple question, "Are You Ready?" Drawing upon the story of Lazarus, Dr. Blount expressed how easy the temptation is to be "dead." We tend to get too comfortable with the condition of stagnancy. However, Christ is calling us OUT of this condition of stagnant death and into a life where we do what God requires of us! Here's an excerpt from his sermon:

"But are we ready to respond? Jesus expects response. Notice, Jesus doesn’t go in the tomb and get Lazarus. Lazarus has to get up and come out. It must be hard if you’re dead to get up. It’s hard for me to get up from a nap on a cold, rainy day. Imagine trying to get up after you’ve been dead for four days. I’m sure you’d want to pull the covers of creation all around you and sleep on into eternity.

When we think about it that way, it’s almost good to be dead, isn’t it? There in the tomb there are no worries, no frustrations, no life to live under the duress of grand expectations, no midterms and final exams, no faculty meetings, no financial issues, no building maintenance problems, no fundraising to be obsessed with. It’s almost good to be dead. Maybe that’s why institutions so often don’t wait for nature to bind them up in death; we kill off ourselves, then bind ourselves up in tombs of lethargy, tombs of tradition, tombs of doing things the same way we’ve always done them because there’s peace in that even if there is no transformation in that. The idea is to get comfortable with being dead, so you don’t hear those voices calling you out into the struggles of mission, worship, and theological education life. Actually, the best thing to do is to figure out the most lively way to be dead. I think that’s my fear for the church and for the seminaries that educate its leaders, that we’ll get too used to being ill and dying, that we’ll get seduced by the calm and peace of the tomb, that we’ll start decorating in there, make ourselves at home with our own decay, ignore the stench of stale approaches, and ignore the call to get up from that deadness and come out because, in the end, to be dead is at the very least to be comfortable. But let us remind ourselves about Jesus’ love. Because Jesus loves us, Jesus is not going to come to Union-PSCE or to the churches we serve and sit in the decay with us. Jesus is going to call...us...out! The question is, are we ready to come out?"

In Dr. Blount's video post, he reminds us of the excitement found in God's call. Christ calls his disciples to follow him, and this is where the church begins!

The church is ALIVE because of the number of people taking this call seriously in whatever vocation they pursue. The church is ALIVE because of seminary students who are committing to serving the church and spreading excitement of the wonderful ways God is working in this world. The church is ALIVE because of YOU!

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Union-PSCE website