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3 Basic Elements of the Church's Life The historical career of the church has led it to adopt certain concrete forms that are not in themselves theologically necessary. However, because these forms have become empirically necessary for the church's life and mission, they must be interpreted theologically. Traditionally they have been called "marks" of the church, and they include ministry, liturgy and sacraments, preaching and teaching, care of souls, mission, and church order. MARKS OF THE CHURCH In this chapter, we move to another level of theological discussion of the church. Here we discuss elements that, although they do not pertain to the eternal being of the church, are basic to the historical life of the church as it has thus far evolved. The considerations discussed in Chapter 2 originated in our strictly theological understanding of the church, as a moment in the unfolding of God's being. The elements of the church's life examined here must be related to that divine unfolding, but they have originated in the empirical course of the church's history. Empirically, they have proven to be necessary to the church's life, even though from a theological point of view they are not necessary. They, must, however, be related to what we have insisted is the necessary theological nature of the church; and it is one of the main tasks of the doctrine of the church to identify and clarify that relationship. Traditionally, the elements we discuss here have been called notae ecclesiae, "marks of the church." Luther writes that the marks of the church answer the question "But how can a poor, erring man know where this Christian, holy people in the world is?"1 He lists seven marks, whose substance is included in thefollowingdiscussion, under categories different from his. Luther's marks are: the Word, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the keys, the ministry, prayer, suffering, and "others." He considered these marks so important that he suggested calling them all sacraments. Recognizing that this usage would not be implemented, he called them "simply seven chief means of Christian sanc223 9 / THE CHURCH tification, or seven holy possessions."2 The term "sanctification" is important, because it indicates that through these basic elements the church lives out its life of faith and holiness in the world. These elements or marks enable the church to be truly the church. MINISTRY "Ministry" has both a broader and a narrower meaning. In its broader mean­ ing it refers to the total activity of the church, as that activity fulfills the church's primary purpose. The church's purpose, in conformity with what we under­ stand the church to be, is to witness explicitly to what Jesus Christ reveals to be the rationale and purpose of the world within the unfolding of God's being and purpose. Consequently, the ministry in this sense belongs first to God; it is God's purposes that are carried out within the church's ministry.3 Without this sense of God's ministry as the undergirding of the church's ministry, no adequate substance or critique can be supplied for the activity of the church. In this broader meaning, ministry refers to what the entire church, lay and ordained, does within the context of God's own ministry. There is no distinc­ tion between ordained and laity when viewed from this broader meaning. Both groups aim at the same divine purposes in their activity; both stand on the resources and under the judgment of the divine purposes. We may summarize briefly the witness of Christ to the rationale and purpose of the world within God's unfolding: God is in the process of bringing creation to the consummation God has planned for it; God is, consequently, a loving God who desires the fulfillment and not the destruction of that creation; the appropriate action for people who wish to glorify God and be obedient to God's purposes is to live a life that gives itself unto death, if need be, for the world, that the world may come to know its destiny at the hands of a loving God and .let that destiny govern it. This summary becomes the state­ ment of the church's purpose and a description of the primary goal of its ministry. Insofar as the activities of laity and clergy conform to that ministry, they can be interpreted as facets of that appropriate action which gives itself unstintingly that the world might know and fulfill...

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