Yesterday I quoted and linked to a recent interview with Stanley Hauerwas from Plough Quarterly concerning Christians and community.  And while I don’t agree with everything that he has to say, Hauerwas has definitely reminded me of the unique nature of the church in the world (elsewhere he speaks of the task of the church being “to make the world the world,” which is interesting).  One of my other favorite quotes from the article has to do with churches and the concept of mission:

The church doesn’t have a mission. The church is mission. Our fundamental being is based on the presumption that we are witnesses to a Christ who is known only through witnesses. To be a witness means you bear the marks of Christ so that your life gives life to others. I can’t imagine Christians who are not fundamentally in mission as constitutive of their very being – because you don’t know who Christ is except by someone else telling you who Christ is. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore it is the task of Christians to embody the joy that comes from being made part of the body of Christ. That joy should be infectious and pull other people toward it.

That’s a pretty high standard, one that should make those of us with tight connections to more “institutionalized” churches take pause for a moment’s reflection.  You can read more of the interview here.