I ain't got nothing better to do with my life than to spend half of it on the road. Been away again throughout the past weekend. Attended a wedding dinner which served superb wine (oops, there you go - now you know teetotality isn't my way of life and I wouldn't have exactly been very much loved by John Wesley), met up with some old acquaintances, and managed to grab some research material from the theological library in a neighbouring country. All in a weekend's work. Achieved everything I expected to for this trip.

And more. There was time for lots of personal reflection. So much time that I even managed to develop a new theology in my moments of silence. So I reflected a lot on my personal struggle and the struggles of many other friends throughout the years with the institutional church. If we have all been so committed to our faith and to the message of the gospel, why have we often not found ourselves fitting the mould of the institutional church? What's wrong with us? And if it's true that the institutional church doesn't always stand in coherence with God's Kingdom concerns, then why does he still allow it to exist? Why does he not abolish the institutional church and establish a church that's entirely organic and missional in nature?

I believe - after years of pondering, virtually - I've found the answer now. Now that I'm back from my trip and have a couple of days to sit in front of the computer screen before I zoom off again, I'm in the process of articulating my theological thoughts regarding this issue. It's going to be a rather new ecclesiological articulation from the viewpoint of an organic missional follower of Christ. I and others like me have for far too long found ourselves displaced. It's time to return with a connected understanding and to see how we fit in the scheme of the church even if we don't always condone how her policies and procedures often take precedence over Kingdom-life.

It'll take a couple of days before I start posting installments of this ecclesiology, but I'd say it's going to be worth the wait. This frame of thought, I increasingly find, is helping me discover answers to so many ambiguities I've entertained regarding my role in the church and why many like me have existed in such a state of tension with the institutional church. It helps me to understand how I should relate with the institutional church from where I stand, since God isn't likely to abolish the institution in the near future - and this ecclesiology explains why God has good reason to require the presence of the institutional church on earth even if it doesn't always see things from his point of view.

Until then...