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Ok, I read a lot. And, sometimes, I talk too much. And, arguably, I blog and e-mail more than is healthy.
I have recently read a sequence of books (well, most of the pages, anyway) which are leading me on a path of understanding church, Christianity, and following Christ, in a different way.
The journey began with A Heart for Christianity, by Marcus Borg. This was my first real taste of examining my faith, the Bible, and the teachings of Christ in a way that gives me comfort spiritually. I felt a new connection to God, as profound as a few years ago when I first learned to pray in a new way, as important I think as a year ago when I finally learned to listen. Neither came to me in the previous course of living a Lutheran faith -- although, fundamentally, I don't think I have had to undergo structural changes in what I believe, so much as a change in em-phas-is in how, where, when, and why.
The Secret Message of Jesus and Everything Must Change, both by Brian McLaren, helped encourage some seeds to take root, and give a refocused faith some sense of urgency -- why is much more important than before. If why could wait, no need to change. Except, why matters. You've heard it before: It's not about you.
And now, on to Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell. I find this book to be like a slow, misty, refreshing spring rain followed by a warm gentle sunlight encouraging the roots to grow deeper and branches to grow stronger. As yeat, I am unsure exactly how big this gets, or what it all means.
In triad today the guys discussed "Justice". We moved from the Law&Order definition of meeting out justice to the Biblical imperitive of taking care of one another. One of the things we dwealt on is how insular we, as in Peace, are. Despite our intentions, we appear to be disengaged with our community -- MIA. Is that a fair assesment?
What is our mission? I like something Bill Roberts said to me some time back -- and it still resonates -- that we "forget" the first part of our Mission Statement -- God calls us and loves us to...
In a similar vein, I harp sometimes on what ever happened to the GO in Love, Grow, Go?
Have we learned (to paraphrase Kelly Freyer) to be the church out there?
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Which leads to a project of sorts...
you could call it a Stewardship project...
unlike the University, which has a real clearinghouse for service opportunities (aka Madison House) -- a place for people to just show up and match their gifts and passions to opportunities to serve -- we have no like resource for non-students -- you can surf Monticello Avenue, and collect some links to organizations, and that's about it...
moreover, what do any of us individually know about the passion and gifts of others? for that matter, what people of Peace already do in the community? Just yesterday, a member of my triad discovered for the first time that he had a possible common interest in both the Bridge Ministry as well as in Building Goodness with another member of Peace -- after a year of worshipping together -- by 'accident'. Does that make sense?
When the old "Leadership Team that did nothing" last met we had come up with an idea that both Discipleship-Learning and Discipleship-Doing were each so important that we separated them organizationally. What we named them seemed less important than giving these two groups permission -- and a charge -- to move forward, encourage, enable, equip, and empower individuals to GO.
This is bigger than talking about mission statements, or drawing bubbles and arrows...
In a week we have an opportunity to just show up and be a part of IMPACT. I hate that -- "just show up". I'd rather pick up a hammer and do something -- so I say... but what do I DO???
What do we do?
I hear we are busy. That's true. Busy with kids, family, jobs... and now small groups, too!!!
Busy enough we don't have time for anything more. Not without a change.
Perhaps a prayer... for refocus, reordering... our priorities, our lives... is in order. Please join me in such a prayer... for me, for you, for Peace... |
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