#ReimagineCHURCH ~ The church shows the world its destiny and future

[Reimagine Curator]

Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World 

by Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Graham Hill 

Healing Our Broken Humanity shows what it means to be the church, the new humanity in Jesus Christ, as Paul writes about in Ephesians 2:15. This is the biblical basis for our understanding of what it means to become new in Christ. The church shows the world God’s perfect design for humanity, which is a reconciled, unified, whole, multiethnic, peaceful, loving life together. As a beacon to the world, the church shows the world what God calls it to be. The church shows the world its destiny and future. In an era where Christian identities seem so enmeshed with race, politics, nationalism, and material goods, we need to imagine a different reality.

This book unpacks what it means to be the new humanity in Christ, as we embrace nine transforming practices that we hope you can adopt into your life. The practices aren’t necessarily sequential. You don’t need to practice the fourth before you can go to the fifth, for example. These practices may be taking place concurrently, and different people might have different entry points. 

·         Reimagine church as the new humanity in Jesus Christ.

·         Renew lament through corporate expressions of deep regret and sorrow.

·         Repent together of white cultural captivity, and racial and gender injustice, and of our complicity.

·         Relinquish power by giving up our own righteousness, status, privilege, selfish ambition, self-interests, vain conceit, and personal gain.

·         Restore justice to those who have been denied justice.

·         Reactivate hospitality by rejecting division and exclusion, and welcoming all kinds of people into the household of God.

·         Reinforce agency by supporting people’s ability to make free, independent, and unfettered actions and choices.

·         Reconcile relationships through repentance, forgiveness, justice, and partnership.

·         Recover life together as a transformed community that lives out the vision of the Sermon on the Mount. 

These nine practices enable us to be the new humanity in Jesus Christ. These nine practices transform the church and the world. They lead to reconciliation, justice, unity, peace, and love. 

—Adapted from the introduction