Get Your Pretense On!

24 • Get Your Pretense On!

Israel, the Incarnation, and the Church. God the Father Almighty is the divine author of the Story, Jesus of Nazareth is the Story’s hero, the Holy Spirit is the Story’s narrator and producer, and the Bible is its script and record. This Story represents the Church’s essential biblical faith. God tells and narrates this Story in the Bible, and as we read it we come to understand that Story as God’s divinely authorized narration of his wondrous work of salvation. Moreover, the Church of God is the Story’s protector and guardian. As we walk by faith in the Son of God we prove ourselves to be the Story’s living, present-day continuation – amazingly, God’s community becomes the place where God’s kingdom reign is seen and experienced. This great Story of God’s love and life becomes, then, our master narrative through which we see the world, and by which we fulfill our mission. In the Church’s theology, she reflects on the Story’s truth and glory, and in her worship, she sings, preaches, and reenacts the milestones of the Story. Through her Gospel and baptism, the Church shares the Story with the lost. When new converts repent and believe in Jesus, they are incorporated into God’s great family, a community where these new believers learn the rules of our faith and walk in the ways of the Nazarene. In their repentance and baptism they embrace an entirely new identity as new characters in the Story of God in Jesus. To join the family is simultaneously to embrace the Story. Likewise, in her spiritual formation, the Church embodies, indwells, and acts out the Story. As she practices her disciplines for the purpose of spiritual formation, she participates as a major actor in the Story. Through the charisms given to all Christians by the Spirit in authentic community, every Christian can take his/her role as a twenty-first-century actor in God’s cosmic drama. And, as the Church testifies and bears witness of the Good News, she fleshes the Story out for all to see. In her preaching