Incarnational Ministry and the Drama of Doctrine

Incarnational ministry, fully being one’s self for others, is an integral part of worship. We can only give ourselves to others when we have ourselves, but we only have our true selves when we give ourselves to God. Incarnational ministry, then, is also a necessary consequence of worship that itself leads us back to worship. Kevin Vanhoozer, in his Drama of Doctrine, compares Christians to actors who are enfleshing a given script in order to communicate a significant message (consider the *astericks* as italics):

"…[T]he telos of the actor/disciple is spiritual communication: performing *Christ* in the power of the Spirit, speaking and acting as a *persona* ‘in Christ’ should speak and act. It is not enough merely to know what to do; one has to become the kind of person for whom such doing comes *naturally*. Doctrine aids the process of becoming integrated persons whose characters coincide with their roles. *Doctrine not only indicates what it is we are to do to participate fittingly in the drama of redemption but actually helps disciples become spiritually fit.* It does this by exposing our mechanical acting and by stripping off our false masks that require so much time and energy to maintain. In place of these false masks, doctrine discloses our true identities, summoning us to become who we are: persons called, known, and loved by God. Doctrine does not construct new masks but unveils our true faces, faces that reflect the glory of God seen in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:6)."

So, fully being one’s self means that, as Christians, by the power of the Holy Spirit we are successively entering deeper and deeper into Christ’s way of being human. We are realizing in our lives with other people the eschatological, the promised, reality of being like Christ. The fact that we get to experience being redeemed humanity now is a fact of grace that must draw us into one another’s lives in such a way that the intentional and self-conscious worship of God is unavoidably elicited in our relationships.

I’m not so good at this.