In keeping with the new format of www.missioalliance.org, we are adding a second post every week. This week’s second post is this one by Cyd Holscaw. It’s a good one. Read about her here. Join in the conversation with her won’t you? My regular post is coming Wednesday afternoon this week.
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When I cook hamburger for my family, I blend up onions, garlic, and zucchini and I hide it in the ground beef. My kids think they’re just eating ordinary hamburger… but they’re actually eating life-giving veggies.
At Life on the Vine, we center our participation in the mission of God around seven practices of Christ’s presence. And in the same way that I hide veggies in beef, as we engage in these practices, our ordinary human activity is actually loaded with divine presence – the life-giving nourishment of Christ Himself.
Our extended families think they are inviting ordinary hamburger over… but we know we’re bringing onions and garlic along with us. Our coworkers think they’re eating lunch with ground beef, but we know we’re packing zucchini.
And so there is this mysterious and mind-blowing partnership between the presence of Christ and our human activity. Without His presence, our activity is merely an obligatory checklist. Without our activity, His presence remains hidden and intangible to a world that is waiting to see Christ incarnate in His people.
It’s about relationship. Christ in us… us in Christ. His presence is a frame through which to view our practice… and our practice is a frame through which the world can see His presence.
It’s not about doing more… not many people I know need a longer list of things to be doing. It’s about being with Christ and recognizing Christ’s presence with us as we do what we’ve already been doing.
I live next door to a father (96) and son (65) who have both lost their wives to cancer. My kids and I have been intentional about visiting them at least once a week for the nearly ten years we’ve lived next door. As I began to consider that Christ goes with us as we talk with these men, I have seen Christ emerging out of this practice that was already in place before I embraced its significance.
We didn’t change what we did… we harding even changed how we did it. We just called it what it already was – a place where Christ has promised to be with His people. When we are present with the least of these, Christ is present in our presence. Zucchini in the hamburger. And when we started calling it what it already was, we 
began to see Christ’ life emerging out of our ordinary hamburger.
How does (or how could) remembering the promise of Christ’s presence affect your practices? How have you seen new life emerge out of the ordinary when you remembered Christ’s promise to be present?
Missio Alliance Comment Policy
The Missio Alliance Writing Collectives exist as a ministry of writing to resource theological practitioners for mission. From our Leading Voices to our regular Writing Team and those invited to publish with us as Community Voices, we are creating a space for thoughtful engagement of critical issues and questions facing the North American Church in God’s mission. This sort of thoughtful engagement is something that we seek to engender not only in our publishing, but in conversations that unfold as a result in the comment section of our articles.
Unfortunately, because of the relational distance introduced by online communication, “thoughtful engagement” and “comment sections” seldom go hand in hand. At the same time, censorship of comments by those who disagree with points made by authors, whose anger or limited perspective taints their words, or who simply feel the need to express their own opinion on a topic without any meaningful engagement with the article or comment in question can mask an important window into the true state of Christian discourse. As such, Missio Alliance sets forth the following suggestions for those who wish to engage in conversation around our writing:
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If you disagree with something the an author said, consider framing your response as, “I hear you as saying _________. Am I understanding you correctly? If so, here’s why I disagree. _____________.
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