In preparing to speak at camp this week, I just typed these words and wanted to share them with you here. I am wondering what you think...
"We live in a time of great change, and that poses serious challenges to the church. Our culture is not undergoing some sort of superficial or trendy transition, but changing at a very foundational uprooting sort of level. We worry about structure and language and programs and outreach, but I believe that is just adopting one troubled system for another. That is still outside in. I believe we have to rediscover what it means to pursue the heart of God for the sake of the Kingdom. We need to re-learn how to lay our lives down as a community for the sake of our neighbors. We have to long for the love of God in our lives until it spills out uncontrollably onto everyone around us, not with words, but with action, good deeds, sacrificial kindness, radical inclusion, and courage to go where others won’t go. When we start here, the structure of the church will take care of itself."
I don't know what it means when something I wrote has got me thinking (can anyone say schizophrenia?) but it has.
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3 comments:
Good words Jackie! Enjoy the camp speaking. Prayers,
Sue B.
I think that you have discovered some really important truth here Jackie. We are so focused on what we can do - yet the NT keeps reminding us that it is about the heart. Jesus came to save the lost - but we forget who the lost are - us. Too much time is spent ignoring ourselves and trying to "fix" others so that they fit our idea of normal. People then get labeled as to whether they are normal, unstable, etc... We destroy more lives and hearts that way than helping. Getting down to the basics I think is where we need to start. So when a gathering consists of the same small handful, then maybe its ok because then we can get to the true heart of each other and find the "dirty" stuff that we are called to get into. Do we stay clean and get down and dirty?
Sure - go and get us all thinking!! LOL
Thanks for these thoughts, Jackie. I think you are right in that culture is undergoing a significant change. So is the church. But one thing that feels overwhelming to me these days is that in times of transition, we have many people (and churches) who are stuck in between somewhere. I think I feel like that myself sometimes. It is a profound disequilibrium. How do we live with one foot in each of two very different worlds? I see people either rejecting the new and hanging on to the old (structure, language, programs, etc) or rejecting the old and grasping for something more nebulous. Somehow, both are important. I would say that both are essential. The Bible is full of both – the heart (as Kari has pointed out) and action/structure/organization as the apostle Paul often points out. I am not sure either really takes care of itself. We need to care for both.
I hope that is food for thought.
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