the Great Giveaway

I read this in David Fitch's book The Great Giveaway and it is still inspiring me. It paints a captivating picture of the church as an living, missional, transformative community. I wrote in poetic stanzas so you can read it slowly and drink it in:

It can only be that God begins in a small way,
at one single place in the world.
There must be a place,
visible
tangible.
Where salvation of the world
can begin
that is,
where the world becomes what it is supposed to be
according to God’s plan.
Beginning at that place
the new thing can spread abroad
but not through persuasion
not through indoctrination,
not through violence.
Everyone must have the opportunity to
come and see.
All must have the chance to behold
and test this new thing.
Then,
if they want to,
they can allow themselves
to be drawn up in the history
of salvation
that God is creating.
Only in that way
can their freedom be preserved.
What drives them to the new thing
cannot be force,
not even moral pressure,
but only fascination of a world that is changed.

- taken from Does God Need the Church? by Gerhard Lohfink