A New Metaphor For Church: The Bicycle Wheel

The whole wheel is the church. While we are all tied to the center, we live our lives on the edge (yes, where the rubber meets the road). Without our ties to the center life falls apart. All the power and energy for the trip comes thru the hub, the crux. So each week we renew our ties to each other and to the cross of Christ as we gather at the center, knowing it is in our lives at the rim where being the church, rolling the church along, and intersecting with the world really happens. The church is not the hub. The church is the whole wheel - its teaching, its people, each life lived in the world is intentionally the church. Out on the rim we are involved in all manner of natural communities. Some are with other believers whose lives are close to ours in geography or interests. These communities intentionally are the church as well. Believers also intersect daily with people who are not followers of Jesus Christ. There we become a crux for them. We point them to Christ and his cross.

The whole church is in constant motion touching the world through which it moves. The church is driven by One who is beyond the church, providing energy and direction. Jesus is the head of the church, the rider shaping the trip. The hub is the proclamation of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments, and its own unique community, a community of faith. At the hub, at the crux, we who are the spokes all tie together, crisscrossing and hooking tightly to each other and to the power source. There the living and active Word of God is proclaimed. But life is not lived at the hub, nor is the church the hub only. Life is lived on the edge. There, the priesthood of all believers live out their calling as followers of Jesus, and as Little Christs to the world. But if all tie into the hub and receive their energy there, life lived on the edge will be fulfilling, transferring the power of Jesus Christ to the world He loves and died for.