God is the Center.
But what if that center moves?

I first read about a moving center from Brian McLaren's More Ready Than You Realise (which contained some audaciously scintillating ideas). The idea is to listen to what God is doing, where He is going, how He is working, at all times. It keeps us on our toes to the possibility that our present ways may not be eternally endorsed, useful and edifying as they may've been.

Just like there is no absolute center in space-time (is there?), it's not helpful to think of God's centered-ness as unchanging and immutable. The divine center is a dynamic (as opposed to static) center, a personal (instead of physical) center.

The tabernacle of the Hebrews also springs to mind. God's Spirit and presence was the undeniable center of the Hebrew community, around which they congregated and focused their cultic practices. The divine center is a ministering and worship-absorbing innermost.

The Spirit blows where it wills. In light of such utter and free sovereignity, talk of boundaries tend to sound superfluous. Roger Olson writes:

"Postconservatives tend to view evangelicalism as a centered set or category rather than as a bounded set or category. Conservatives tend to insist that evangelicalism including evangelical theology has boundaries.

"I have always been puzzled by this insistence on boundaries enclosing a movement and its theology. Boundaries imply a setting and enforcing authority; what magisterium would set or enforce evangelical boundaries? Sociologically it makes no sense.

"A movement and its ideology cannot have boundaries, but it is defined by its center—a set of common themes and commitments. Whether a person or institution belongs to the movement is decided by relationship to the center.

"Once a movement has boundaries it is no longer a movement but an organization. Organizations must have boundaries; movements never have boundaries." (Postconservative Evangelicalism: An Update After A Decade, Roger Olson, p.12)

Is the church an organisation or a movement? What is her center? What are her boundaries? And would these definitions change over time and space?