Abstract
The church’s purpose has always been to carry out God’s mission (the missio Dei) in the
world, proclaiming, and working for the building up of the kingdom of God. As Robert
Linthicum points out in his book Building a People of Power: Equipping Churches to Transform
Their Communities, Jesus sought to initiate, in humanity, the reign or kingdom of God, God’s
shalom––God’s vision for human society. This kingdom of God is to be brought about by God’s
people, seeking peacefully but shrewdly to re-form a society on the Jubilee principles of a
reversal of fortune; where wealth is equitably distributed, poverty is eliminated, all politics are
just, and all are reconciled to each other because all are reconciled with God (2 Cor. 5:19-20). As
such, God’s people should personify and demonstrate by their lifestyle and behavior, their
transfigured lives through their worship of and commitment to God. Our churches need to learn
from Jesus, how he demonstrated the principles of the kingdom of God which he proclaimed and
hence how tackled the power structures of his day that threatened the manifestation of that
kingdom. When this is meaningfully and practically done by our congregations, then the
proclamation of the gospel will find relevance in the lives of those outside of the church (and
also for many within it).
ii
Consequently this thesis puts forward the point that God’s people worship a God who
calls them into union with God’s self through (baptism and) their participation in the Holy
Eucharist. As the body of Christ, God’s people participate in the Holy Eucharist such that their
transfigured lives, work together for the total transformation of the world––its peoples, systems
and structures––into what God intended it to be: the Kingdom of God. Having understood and
participated in the Holy Eucharist, this act of worship by its very nature and meaning sends
God’s people out into the world as it is, to renew or re-form the world into the kingdom of God,
thereby fulfilling the missio Dei.
Using Linthicum’s theology of power, this thesis further asserts that churches should seek
to transform themselves in order to transform the societies, the communities in which they are
placed or find themselves. This is suggested through the use of relational power as a strategy by
which the church is to transform itself through relational meetings and, having done so, to work
in concert with other churches and organizations to bring about the transformation of their
communities. It is through the use of relational power, (and community organizing) that the
Kingdom of God, God’s shalom, in the communities, towns or cities where they are can be
established.
Of course this is not the world we currently live in. This is the world as God intended it
to be––the kingdom of God. The world that the Scriptures challenge and mandate the Church to
work toward. Subsequently, this thesis puts forward the use of relational power among
congregations in order that those congregations will transform themselves––be strengthened in
all facets of its life––and so be better enabled to go out into the world as it is to transform it into
the world as God intends it to be.
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[This work is conceived primarily within an Episcopal/Anglican context drawing upon research
found mainly among Episcopal/Anglican and Roman Catholic resources but not limited to them.]
