A Church Called To Be An "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow" (EPCOT)

Author Meghan Good invites us to take
a new look at God's vision for the future. 

God's plan is to "heaven" the earth, to close the gap, to make the two realms one--a single place where God's good, just will is always done.

- Meghan Larissa Good (Divine Gravity--Sparking a Movement to Recover a Better Christian Story)

October 1982 marked the grand opening of the EPCOT Center (acronym for "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow"), an expansion of the Florida-based Disney World. Founder Walt Disney stated its vision as,  "EPCOT will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed but will always be introducing and testing, and demonstrating new materials and new systems. And EPCOT will always be a showcase to the world of the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise."

In a similar way, the Reign of God Movement Jesus announced should see itself as a demonstration of God's "experimental community of tomorrow" here on earth, reflecting the imagination and creativity of the God of the universe, and launched in the present age.

For too many, the Christian story has been reduced to promoting a free pass to the life to come, with too little attention paid to engaging disciples in a movement to reclaim and restore God's vision for life in the present world. As theologian and author N.T. Wright writes in Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, “Jesus’s resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s Prayer is about.”

According to Jesus, God's kingdom, or reign, "is at hand." It begins in the present and is a prototype of God's forever reign on a new and restored earth. The worldwide community of followers of Jesus and the Hebrew prophets is to be a primary manifestation of this new reality, a "city on a hill" known for its good works, or its "God-works," as follows:

1) God-followers envision diverse people of "every tribe, nation, language and race" living together as communities of shalom.

2) God-followers "beat their swords into plowshares" and renounce all forms of violence. They refuse to take part in the manufacture or use of weapons of war.

3) God-followers repent of their "love of money" (Mammon) and re-invest treasure in the "Company of Heaven," God's plan for eliminating want and making sure everyone on earth has enough. 

4) God-followers "do not commit adultery," and live lives of loving integrity in their family, marriage and other relationships.

5) God-followers "tend and care for" God's creation, avoiding doing harm to the planet and seeking to preserve and protect all life on earth.

6) God-followers "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God," crying out against injustices suffered by the oppressed and marginalized.

7) God-followers welcome all people everywhere to a life of full salvation and life-giving shalom. 

Every gathering of God's people should be a time of re-empowering us for that mission.