1) The document is the ministry statement of M. Barrett Davis, outlining their view that God is reconciling all things through Christ by creating unity between once-divided humans. 2) Davis believes God is achieving this through personal and communal love in the church, breaking down divisions in the still-divided world. This love and unity is the purpose of the church and the way of peace for all humanity. 3) Davis' purpose is to create spaces, like the house church they found peace in, where people can pray, grieve, celebrate, and be in relationship with God and each other through Christ, guided into this reconciling love.

1. M. Barrett Davis 14 April 2015
BIBM 679
Ministry Statement of Purpose
Dr. Jeff Childers sat back during the Senior Review for my Master’s of Divinity and
asked me, “So, what is God up to?” Wracking my brain for all possible answers I might have,
I decided on the eschatology of Ephesians: “The mystery of God’s will, set forth in Christ,”
“created in him one new humanity” from once-divided humans, so that “through the church
the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and
authorities,” eventually “gathering all things into himself” “in whom [we] are also built
together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” (Eph. 1.9-10, 2.15, 2.22, 3.10). That is the
picture I have of God’s reconciling work through Christ in the power of the Spirit.
Both Dr. Childers and Dr. Smith pressed me on that, inviting me to lay out what that
looks like. If I assume that God is in essence personal, communal love—and I do—then the
way in which this “mystery of Christ” “gathers all things into himself” will look like
personal, communal love. This is the whole purpose of church. This is the way in which
divisions are broken down among the human beings in our still-perpetually-divided world.
It is the way of peace, for all humanity.
I have been looking for this peace my whole life. I did not find it at home; in fact, as I
have shared before, I have hardly ever felt at home anywhere. There was a lack of
personal, communal love in my family. There is more now than there was, and for that I am
grateful. I found some of it among my closest Christian friends at Texas A&M. They (along
with my spiritual director) taught me how to pray, how to invite the presence of God, how
it felt to be heard and in turn how I could hear others well. Yet I also know we were far
from that which lies at the heart of God’s will for us. This is why I have so loved my current

2. house church. With them I was able to walk in community from a group of strangers to a
church family, one that knows my greatest burdens (sins, griefs, and otherwise) as well as
my greatest joys. We celebrate our Lord Jesus from this place, and nothing I have known
has brought me such peace or made me feel so loved, so at home.
My purpose, for the rest of my life, will be to create the same space that has been
created for me: A place to pray, a place to grieve, to be joyful, sad, angry, scared, happy,
excited, and tender. In this place I hope to guide others as I have been guided, into
relationship with the Son who reconciles us to the Father and gives us a Spirit that
empowers. I can do this in my own home, or in a hospital room, or in a large church
building, or a street corner. Because God has come down to this earth, taken on our image,
been made known to us, and invited us into the divinely personal, communal love that will
last into eternity. I make the space, invite the other person into it, and wait with hope that
God will come down to meet them. The rest is up to him.