TopekaStew

I had a great time "at church" yesterday morning. We're in Texas on vacation visiting old friends, Geoff and Beth. We decided to do church with another family, Jeff and Annette, who are friends who've moved here from Topeka. We joined them at their large, suburban church in Allen, Tx. I loved it. The singing was good. The songs were Bible-saturated. The concordance in my head was whirling, reminding me who God is and what he does. Tears came to my eyes. I raised my hands in praise. I got to lean down and point out to my daughter sitting next to me the connection between the words in one song and the Bible verses we had read at the breakfast table that morning. And then, in the middle of the Lord's Supper I looked up and saw a friend I haven't seen in ten years. I stood and walked thirty feet to sit next to him to drink the cup. Annette invited them to lunch with us at their house. Three families joined for a meal, joking, laughing, eating, complimen...

I like the case study I posted yesterday because it makes me think about the essence of what it means to be church. It forces me to ask myself what are the most important parts of Christianity. The fear factor would, I think, send me running to God to know what he would want me to do, rather than coasting along with the status quo. So, the first thing I thought of, of course, was prayer: If I were suddenly dropped into a culture that was more openly hostile to Christianity I would immediately run to God in prayer. I would ask him the following: - keep my family together and steadfast, clinging to God and his truth - to lead us to those being called out of darkness (1 Peter 2:9) so that we might have a community of support (church) - to give us wisdom and boldness to speak to those people - to pray with the new believers: Once He made them part of the church I would begin to pray with them. I think prayer would be one of the primary activities we would need to do as we were "being...

Imagine for a moment that you wake up tomorrow morning and discover that God has plunked you down in a place where Christianity is illegal. There is no section in the Yellow Pages listing churches. There are no cathedrals, no church buildings. You know only a small handful of people who seem sympathetic to the idea of Christianity, but you don't know them well. Your current network of Christian friends/family live far away and they are available to you only by phone or by mail. What would you do? How would you go about being the church in that place? What would God have you do? Assume the following: - the rest of your life is just like your current situation - you have the same kind of job, same income - you live in the same kind of neighborhood - you have the same time, money, and energy constraints you currently have What would you do? How would you go about being the church in that place? What would your priorities be?

Talking about the work of prayer, Mother Teresa once wrote that "the sick can be especially effective in a work that infinitely surpasses human capabilities...." She credited the fact that their weakness strips them of pride and leaves them believing that "they are useless dependents on God alone." "Useless dependents on God alone." "Especially effective." Heavy.

At church we are in the middle of a series on the gospel and how upside-down it is. And I confess that it's messing with my head. I just don't think that I get the gospel. I mean I get it. I get grace and all that. I think I'm growing in grace and knowledge and going deeper as I walk with God. But, man, I'm not there yet. You know? Here's what I mean. I was reading what D.A. Carson wrote in The Cross and Christian Ministry, and I underlined what he says about God's weakness being stronger than our strength: "This is much more radical than saying that God has more wisdom than human beings, or that he is stronger than human beings--as if we are dealing with mere degrees of wisdom and power. Now, we are dealing with polar opposites. Human 'wisdom' and 'strength' are, from God's perspective, rebellious folly and moral weakness." (Carson, p. 26) I think I believe what Carson says, and that when I'm weak, God is strong. Bu...