rules of engagement.

we’re looking for the music
in the music box
tearing it to pieces
trying to find a song

I think I’ve always been the kind of person that constantly looks for deeper, hidden meaning in the things that happen to me, the things I do, the people that are in my life, and the music I hear. I think I am like this because I think we all are like this. It’s somewhat staggering that we are such meaning-ful creatures that we desperately need our lives to count…and yet, based on the number that seem to be running headlong and with heartbreaking ambition toward that which will assimilate and undo them…no one seems to know this.

Anyway. I partly because I think in some ways my life is and will be a reclaiming of this return and redemption of meaning (hint, you lose yourself to find yourself), I thought I’d write a little about my engagement. Because it means something (duh).

I am recently and happily engaged to be married to the love of my life. I will spare you the shouting it from the hilltops and running through the halls like a crazy person…and instead tell you that of all the events and seasons in my life, nothing has spoken more of God’s love and care for me than this.

rule 1: I was drawn to you in ways I can’t explain.

Now this…this is really true. Of all the explaining I do on a daily basis and seek after when I’m confused, this one defied all explanation. I realize this can be (and is for me sometimes) a little disconcerting – after all, this is one of the biggest happenings of my life. But I don’t mean that there are so many differences between my fiancé and I, or that he’s so not what I expected and this is why I can’t explain it. I mean that it was, and is, perfect. I never, never knew that someone and something could fit so perfectly. This is not to say that he is perfect, and heaven knows I am not. I think it’s funny that when looking for perfection, we only look in the good, easy, happy places. For the most part, we find it there. But I think perfection lies quietly elsewhere…in our weaknesses, in our vulnerabilities, in our longing to know, in our commitment to learn, in our persistence to love, in our mistakes in all of the above. And this is how we fit.

And this is what God sees. I am drawn to God in ways I cannot explain, but as I am learning more about Him, I know that I am drawn because He is the only place I fit perfectly. Even my weaknesses fit – and when we’re talking about a Holy God folks…that’s pretty gracious.

rule 2: Fought like crazy but I couldn’t stay away.

Mmm. Can I get an amen? I see that hand. (What? I’m marrying a Baptist.) I work with college women (heck I live with college women) and I have had this conversation I think three different times this week. These walls we put up to guard the things we are afraid of others knowing are ridiculous, and almost completely prevent anyone from really knowing us. What’s really crazy is that we are simultaneously desperate for someone to scale or even destroy these walls. Just tonight I had a student come into my home in tears, saying “no more walls, no more”, and then proceeded to tell me everything. Love is like that. Love believes all things. Love is not naive, but love will fight like crazy for the good. I am learning that fighting for the good, relentlessly assuming the good and pure is like breath. It is like breath. When I speak to my beloved and he believes me…this is breath to my spirit. It is like life. It causes my heart to unfold in ways no one has ever, ever seen. Like someone testing out shaky ground, I step lightly and tentatively on to trust, and find life in the truth. Love fights for this. Love fights to give this.

And God did this. I was reading Colossians the other day a bit teary-eyed, because I came across the passage in chapter 3 that talks about God cancelling the debt that stood against us. He fought what was against us, when we were against Him. The way the man I love loves me shows me this. He breaches my walls and breathes life into my spirit, believing the best about me when I fight him, when I frantically throw up walls and run away from him, and when I am uncertain about all else.

rule 3: Better than our promises is the day we get to keep them.

My friends. This is probably what scares me and makes me most excited about loving someone. So easy is it when things are good, when things are smooth, when things work out, when we understand each other, when we are able to look each other in the eye (which is not often, we are 1,000 miles apart), when we laugh at the same things, when we both want to be nice to the other…and that’s when we make our promises. And rightly so: the love in those times is real too. But…in a few months I’m going to stand in front of him and a couple others and make him promises. And in a few more months, I’m going to have to keep them. But this is where I am thankful almost beyond words that I get the chance to show the man I love that yes…see?…I meant it. He has done this to me in spite of my huge insecurities. They don’t seem to faze him. He doesn’t laugh at me and he doesn’t give up.

The idea of covenant has fascinated and encouraged me since I began studying it in college. A covenant is an agreement made between two parties that both costs and benefits them. Both sides are responsible for upholding the covenant, and their word is their promise that they will indeed do so. In the same way, God has made a covenant with His people – this has been so since Abraham. But the crazy thing about this covenant is that God makes it with man. God, the holy and immutably strong, makes a covenant with man, the flighty and hypocritically weak. So…getting it? God pretty much has to hold this one up when man inevitably fails. And as soon as man fails, God is no longer responsible for His end of the bargain either. And yet…He does keep His end of the bargain. And ours too.

That’s all for now. If you just skip to the end of this lengthy post, know this: I think, that from being loved like this, I am learning what love means. I think that someday, because of this man (and this Man), I will know what love means.

can i belong to you?

Jem was staring at his half-eaten cake.

“It’s like bein’ a caterpillar in a cocoon, that’s what it is,” he said. “Like somethin’ asleep wrapped up in a warm place. I always thought Maycomb folks were the best folks in the world, least that’s what they seemed like.”

“We’re the safest folks in the world,” said Miss Maudie. “We’re so rarely called on to be Christians, but when we are, we’ve got men like Atticus to go for us.”

(from To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee)

My thoughts on God talking to us are going to have to wait. In thinking about that, I got on a tangent about why Christians think the way they do about God, about each other, about church, about learning, and about why it’s so hard to get Christians to change – or in more spiritual terms, renew their minds. Although I think there’s a lot in there, I wonder if one of the biggest culprits isn’t belonging.

Have you ever been in a group of people that are given instructions to do something together? What happens when the instructions are complete and the action is supposed to begin? There’s this moment (and the longer it is, the more awkward it is) where everyone looks at everyone, without managing to make eye contact with anyone, and waits for someone to make the first move. This is especially observable at any kind of buffet meal. No one wants to go up first and start the line. If a couple people do, however, or better yet – the group decides as a whole, then it’s all good. (Some call this the lemming effect.)

This is the case I think because we don’t do things alone. Chalk it up to insecurity, to straight up fear, to whatever. But pivotal in there is this sense of wanting – needing – to do things together. To feel in place, not out of place. To fit in, not stand out. To belong. We don’t even have to be the funniest, the smartest, the prettiest…belonging to a group with all of these characters covers a multitude of things.

We are so rarely called upon to be Christians. The church is caught smack in the middle of that awkward pause between instruction and action. Everyone is halfway-risen off their chairs, sheepishly grinning at the group in particular, waiting for everyone else to make the same decision at the same time. So we have someone else – the missionaries, the visionaries, the passionate worship leaders, the teachers who can’t contain their excitement – go for us. We are the safest people in the world.

I have a really hard time continuing to belong to this group. But I can’t leave it. I understand my fellow church-goers better after my reflections the past couple days. I understand the people that believe what teachers have to say is true simply because they know and like the teacher. I understand that halfway-off-the-seat feeling, waiting for someone else to join me. Waiting for reassurance that even in this new action my belonging to the group is not threatened. I think we are the sheep Jesus wept over.

I need to belong. I need to belong. I need…to belong. Somewhere. Give me somewhere, someone to belong to. Not on a card-carrying level – but on a soul level. I have found this compulsion to be the impetus for cults, for affairs (both with people and with the church), for the making and breaking of a multitude of relationships that were meant to be reassuring. This need, this gnawing keeps us looking, hungering, searching, loving, swearing allegiance to, burying ourselves in things bigger than we are. And like patches on a scout uniform, we collect, organize and display our identity.

Oh Christian, belong to those who are belonging to the wrong things. Don’t look at the rest of the people in your group, waiting to get up when you do. Look at the people outside, who are wandering. Belong to them.

no one’s laughing at God

One of my favorite musical artists, Regina Spektor (just her name makes you want to listen to her sing), is very good at saying very offensive things very clearly. Like in a way that you hear them, couched cleverly in happy, chimey songs laced with her lilting voice that…goes all over the place and you think: hm. I am very offended because this chimey lilting lady just called me on the carpet. But I think I’m going to continue listening. Because what she’s saying is kind of true.

There’s this song she sings about…well, about God. And it’s absolutely stinging, to both sides – the ignorant and arrogant.

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God when they’re starving
Or freezing or so very poor

But God can be funny
Like at a cocktail party when listening
To a good God-themed joke…
God can be funny
When told He’ll give you money if you pray the right way
And presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
God can be so hilarious

I mean…what the. Yes. No. I want to both cheer for her candidness and hide from the mirror it puts up in front of me. It’s the best well-thought out mockery with legitimate reasons I’ve ever seen.

And so it makes me ask: What do we expect out of God? Who do we think He is? Better yet, who do we think we are? We don’t laugh at God when the chips are down. We don’t laugh because we want to believe that He exists…because we might need Him. This is the part that Christians hear and say to themselves “I don’t doubt that God exists. In fact, God and I are so close that He’s a part of my day-to-day life.” And then they listen to the second part. Really. So let me guess: your day-to-day life consists of cocktail parties, where your problems can be contained in witty sayings and graceful social niceties. God’s pretty lighthearted there, isn’t He?

See, neither party is innocent here. When it counts, when it matters, when the rubber meets the road, when the choices are few and the implications vast, when it directly affects us is God’s communication with us. We seem to think we can get away with believing a variety of things regarding God’s existence, but when it comes to times when we need to hear from Him or want Him to hear from us, both parties seek to have God right where they want Him.

I’m scared this is also the case when teaching our young people. I work at a college, and just recieved in my mailbox a flyer about seminars, etc. on choosing a career. This being a Christian college, the concept of calling is very much incorporated, and rightly so. But somehow this has turned into a flyer that says on the front, in big letters, “Can you hear Me now?” I was livid. How has the calling of God on a young, talented, enthusiastic believer’s life transitioned from “how has God wired you? What are you passionate about? What do you know about God?” to “are you listening to God good enough?” People, don’t sit around waiting for God to specifically tell you what to do. I’m afraid you’ll never move if you wait like that. I think we expect to hear God far too specifically in our individual lives, and I’m not sure He talks to us like that.

Why not, you ask? That’s a whole other post. I think we have to recognize the weird ways we seem to think we “hear” the voice of God first, then talk about how He really does communicate. I just think that what we think of as God being able to do anything – like talk to us specifically about specific details of our life – is actually more of a limiting idea than we think it is.

Don’t stone me yet. Listen to this song instead.

Oh, Your love is a symphony
All around me
Runnin through me
Oh, Your love is a melody
Underneath me
Runnin to me
Your love is a song
Your love is my remedy

(-”Your Love Is A Song”, Hello Hurricane by Switchfoot)

novartis, lot 102069P1

Over the past several months, there have been so many things that I have wanted to write about…those of you that have blogs know what I mean. You’ll come out of a meeting, walk across the parking lot after work, put your books away after class and have that feeling of needing to write about something. Something you heard, felt, or saw just has become very clear to you and you need to describe it…and then you get home and…well. There you have it. The next time you start a post you begin with “over the past several months”…

I decided this had to stop yesterday. Yesterday all of these moments came together and I stood still and looked at the ceiling and said to myself “…okay.” Most anyone that reads this knows I’m on staff at a small private Christian college, and yesterday was the long-awaited arrival of the H1n1 vaccine for our campus. Yesterday myself and a bunch of my colleagues spent hours in the student center with our two amazing nurses, organizing and running a mass-immunization effort. And there I was, finding myself holding a clipboard, calling names to “come on back”, checking paperwork, getting signatures, handing out immunization records, rubbing my arm where I had got the vaccine, and writing “novartis, lot 102069P1″ on a bunch of forms, indicating the manufacturer and lot number of the vaccine. I also ran and got more from the fridge, shaking my head at how much we’ve heard and gotten wigged out over these little bottles of novartis lot 102069P1. And no matter how much you think this flu thing has been blown out of proportion, the fact remains that it’s pretty crazy that I can “run to the fridge and get more” while there are millions asking for more. I know it will all iron out in the end. But still. I told the nurse I was working with that this would be something I would tell my kids someday. She nodded and gave me a smile that said she knew what I was talking about but oh honey, there will be so much more you’ll tell your kids.

But finally sitting down to write a blog is, as many of you know, akin to the WalMart Principle. Similar to trips to the library or movie store, you finally get there and promptly forget everything that was on your list to begin with. You should see me these days going into WalMart…I repeat my list to myself while I’m walking from my car to the store entrance, which probably convinces the Salvation Army Bell-Ringer-People that I’m certifiably nuts.

Speaking of which: The Salvation Army Bell-Ringer-People are out. ALREADY. I know, I know – every year I make some kind of comment about how early Christmas-y things come…everyone does. But seriously people. Last year, it was the first weekend in November. This year – the day after Halloween. I mean really. Besides the early date, I really don’t think the unseasonably warm PA “winter” is helping things. It literally feels like a cool summer day most days. Only thing different is that the leaves are gone – but grass is still green, sun’s still out, moisture still in the air…well, there’s always moisture in the air to this Alaskan girl.

But back to the Salvation Army Bell-Ringer-People. As I get older and discover that I’m…an adult (which will also be something I tell my kids someday), I’m finding that I have my own personal traditions. Like on Valentine’s Day, I often give roses to those my friends. Near Christmas, I have a pact with myself that everytime I go past the Salvation Army Bell-Ringer-People, I have to empty whatever change and $1 bills I have on me at the time. Sometimes it’s a few stray pennies. Sometimes it’s several dollars. Sometimes I avoid the door they’re at because of this self-imposed tradition.

All of these things, things that make me write, things that I will tell my kids someday, are things that are shaping my view of life. And I really do think that Life is bigger and smaller than we think it is. Everything we do means something and nothing we do means anything. All at the same time. I think my next set of thoughts will be about God speaking to us and about our choices and actions meaning something eternally…but until then, I rejoice in the freedom to say I will tell my kids about this later. If Novartis Lot 102069P1 will let me live that long.

why i love teaching.

1. Because I Can’t Replicate That Lightbulb Look.
So usually when I walk into the class of freshmen that I teach, their hands are already up, ready to interact and ask questions about the reading for that week. I know. Weird. Seriously I could write a post about how strangely alive this group is. They are English and Writing majors, and usually (sadly) they fit right into the mold that the stereotype leaves them. But for some reason this year they are eager, vocal and inquisitive. I love them.

Anyway, I walked into class yesterday morning and they were not excited. The reality of college and homework has started to settle in, and they were tired. The held up their chins with their hands and kind of giggled sheepishly when I came in. “Man, guys, what’s wrong with you today? Everything okay?” They tried to rally a bit but only halfway succeeded. I thought maybe talking about some things unrelated to school would help, but after a few minutes of conversation I could tell they were simply dreading the invitable – talking about the articles.

Now in their defense, the reading for this week was difficult, long, and not easily applicable. We were studying about the foundations of Christian higher education, and how Geneva has gone about trying to incorporate all these things into their program. We started in, but after a little bit of discussion it got real quiet. Then, all of a sudden, the giant organ started playing in the auditorium next door. All heads came up and those inquisitive looks I have come to love flickered across the faces of the students. We talked about how cool it sounded. Then, after asking a question they seemed to be thinking about, I interrupted myself. “Hang on a second. While you think about that, I’m leaving.” And I headed for the door.

I went to check out the balcony of the auditorium, which was open a few doors down from my classroom. I returned and poked my head in the classroom door. Against my very best judgment, I said “Okay. If you’re quiet, you can come and listen.” They kind of shrugged collectively and walked down the hall with me. We stood and listened quietly for a minute and although I was enjoying hearing Bach fuges, I was kind of starting to wonder if I settled. If I let them win, not having enough confidence in the material to be engaging, not expecting them to engage with it, and instead playing hookey down the hall with the organ.

To try and assuage my conscience, I gathered them around me and said, “I want you to listen and consider what this music says to you. What you do feel when you listen to it? How does it make you feel in your mind, your heart and your gut? What does it make you think of?” And let them scatter throughout the balcony again. I watched them listen, and…it began to happen. Eyes closed and chins lifted a bit, breathing slowed and shoulders relaxed. Then noses and foreheads scrunched up as they thought hard and listened intently. After several minutes, we returned to our room.

What followed was one of the most amazing things I have ever been a part of. The same students who had been falling asleep and completely glassy-eyed earlier were now alert and not only attentive to me, but to their classmates. A young man who doesn’t ever say much said “If that music had a color, it would be…silver.” And a girl who is relatively closed teared up as she described how it reminded her of home. Words like grand, majestic, ominous, dissonant, waves and surrounding came from a group of students who most often limit themselves to words such as like, feel and huh. And all of a sudden they were learning. The foundations of Christian education became as real to them as the bass notes of the organ, and the dissonance and resolution of Bach’s genius now gave them courage and confidence to try new things in college and to find their own way.

I can’t replicate that bright-eyed look of realization anywhere else.

2. Because I Learn More Than I Teach.
In this Bible study I’m a part of with some of my closest friends, I am supposed to come with insights about the passage we’re studying every week. And although I love studying and learning about the Scriptures, I always, always, always learn more than I teach. I am continually silenced by how much new insight I gain by listening to these women who just come to the Scripture expecting to hear from it. Simple. And then they do what it says. Simple.

it’ll be a slow recovery.

My relationship with God has changed a lot in the last year – in a good way, I think. In good, unexpected ways. In ways that seem scarily like walking on tightrope…not sure of whether God is disapproving of me, or proving a point that His approval does not depend on what I do. God seems silent but not distant, watching attentively as I put into practice what He’s taught me over the last 13 years or so.

Some of this has been specifically in the area of my attitude toward, belief about, and participation in church. And I feel that it is a testimony to both the work of God and His persistent love for the church that I swung from one side of the pendulum to the other. On one extreme, I have been so dramatically in love with the church. I have felt that there is no other institution that is more generous, more compassionate, more cohesive and more supportive. The image of God is expressed better there than I can do by myself, and I felt the most at home in the church.

On the other extreme, I have been so appallingly disgusted with the church. I have felt that there is no other institution that is more stingy, more judgmental, more divisive nor more destructive. The image of God is shattered here in more devastating ways that I can even do in my own sin, and I have felt the most lonely in the church.

I’ve run the full spectrum in regards to my feeling about church. I have completely given up. And have discovered something – this at least the second or third time with something very, very significant in my spiritual life that I have given up on, even in anger. I have thrown in the towel, sometimes into God’s proverbial face, and walked away. I find that if I leave God alone to “think about what He’s done”, I eventually come to my senses. And He usually slowly starts working on my “problem”, because I’ve finally given up.

So, all that to say that my views on church are slowly and timidly recovering. And before where this recovery showed up in ways that were philosophical and only visible in my thoughts while running and my delving into the scriptures even more closely, now it’s showing up in more visible ways. Like the fact that over the summer I became an official member of the church I attend. When the “director of adult ministries” contacted me, I set aside my cynicism for her title and agreed to meet with her. I attended a bible study. And in the greatest visible sign of redemption to date, I am a small group leader in the process of assembling a group. In the very system that caused me to drive 35 minutes home in tears because it was so uncomfortable. I swore during that ride home that I was done. And here I am leading a group.

The reason I know all of this is real is because it’s not out of guilt. It’s not out of some kind of compulsion. And I can honestly say I’ve never really experienced that before. I actually want to do these things, even though I’m still surprised that I want to. So. The recovery will be slow.

But it’s a recovery nonetheless. This is more than I ever thought I’d see.

scriptura.

This evening I led a group of my colleagues in a small devotional time during what we have deemed as “vespers” for this week. We are in the middle of training for the upcoming year, which involves a lot of work, a lot of conversations, a lot of time spent together, and a lot of…just getting ready.

Tangentially, it really takes a lot of work to get ready. A strange amount of work for something that never really happens. I’m…never ready. Makes me wonder what I was really feeling during those times in the past when I felt that I was “ready”, only to experience a rude awakening later. I really am okay with never being ready, and I think that’s because I’m a lot more messy than I was a couple years ago. By that I mean that my clothes are piled on the recliner in my bedroom, and also that my kitchen table is piled with papers, and also that my life is really, really integrated. Not ready, but all over the place. Everything is into everything else’s business, and the different issues in my life step over boundaries and offend each other, and they kiss and make up but in the meantime something else falls through the cracks…you can see why I’m never “ready”. I am…just as I am, take me or leave me. My thoughts are important but they rarely see the light of day. I am an original but just want to sit on the porch with you and drink your iced tea. I will change the world but not today. And not tomorrow either. Maybe after I’m gone. There will always be something in me that strives for more, for better. But I am learning the time and place for those things, and I’m learning that more is…less. It really, really is. Success is small. Nope – smaller. I keep thinking of my brother in little league – the once-a-game fly ball would come toward where he was standing in the outfield, and he would miss what everyone thought was his moment of greatness because he had found a four-leaf clover. And I, the big sister scorekeeper, would slap my forehead in frustration. But now I realize – no one else had a four-leaf clover from those games. My brother was never ready. And always living.

ANYway. I wanted to talk about Scripture, more briefly than I did in my tangent. Hm. It was my turn for vespers, like I said, and instead of sharing deep and profound thoughts and trying to be insightful and persuasive, I thought I’d just read Scripture. The Bible is a book from oral tradition and is meant to be heard out loud. It is an astounding cynosure of a book and collection of writings on every level: linguistially stellar, logically flawless, and historically seamless. And I read it to my colleagues and friends because I have a deep, deep reverence for the Scripture. I believe that it can change the lives of those who allow it. God wrote it. God, graciously using gifted humans, wrote this book.

I read out of 1 Corinthians about the wisdom of God, then from John about the plans of God, then from Psalms about the presence of God. I watched as the tension, even between each other, eased for a while and my friends were reminded of the God they love and who loves them. A tear or two fell from faces I know and who know me, and I prayed my friends could breathe for a bit. Even if they weren’t ready.

would you come?

www.10thousanddoors.com

Saw a commercial this afternoon that said this:
“What if the church could cure malaria? Would you come?”

I…don’t know. Is being able to solve a social and cultural evil a reason to be involved in the church that does?

Also found this:
“The church helps us think and act out a faith perspective…”

Hmm.

give the people what they want.

At church today, the pastor in his sermon said that people don’t go to church because they don’t feel like they belong. Conversely, people want to belong, so those that do go to church feel like they belong. “Church is for church people,” he said, summarizing comments he’s heard from unchurched people. (Which number 82% in the United States, by the way.)

It seems to me that in trying to figure out…things about the church – what is good, what is not, why we can’t give up on it, how we should remain faithful and invest in it – we should first figure out what is seen of the church. In the book Unchristian, by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, the “outsiders” view of the church is pretty well expressed. It’s all stuff we “insiders” have heard before…the church is full of hypocrites and anti-homosexual, naieve conservatives who are more bound by their performance-based religion than others are by their “sinful” lifestyle. Who would want to join them?

According to my pastor, those who want to connect to God, and those who want to belong. The church, he says, exists to connect people with God. A really big part of that is helping others to feel they belong.

What do you think? What is the church here for? What do the people – the 82% unchurched and 18% churched alike – want?

And – does what they want matter…?

exchanging truth.

(an email I just wrote to a friend.)

hey matt.
 
hope you and your family are well. glad to hear the project is going well…i will be in prayer for it, especially for funds. man, that can be hard to come by. keep me posted.
 
yeah, we should talk. and yes, i am very passionate about teaching the church to think, to put it bluntly. it’s kind of a continuing discussion. i’m excited to hear what you have on your mind about that…?
 
looked at the school you mentioned. don’t remember talking with you about it before, but that means nothing… i am sure i just spaced it. anyway, it’s online and i just spent some time going through the site. i don’t think it’s too “emergent-y”.
 
when it comes to basic education like that (as opposed to what is widely considered to be supplementary education), i am all for integration and “unitizing” stuff. the only non-negotiable – and this goes for teaching in and to the church also – is that the direct, undiluted truth is communicated clearly without compromise. sounds elementary, but i’m afraid that sometimes we get a little distracted trying to make whatever we’re teaching relevant or effective by supplementing it with different things or presenting it in different ways. in so doing, we dilute the hard facts with programs and metaphors. at worst, we loose it all together for the sake of a successful program and “happy” people. i’m all about tailoring the message to fit the audience – as long as it’s necessary. there are many examples of this in scripture during “great educational moments” and moments of the church’s expansion; i.e. during pentecost when the apostles spoke in different languages, and during the ministry of jesus when he would use stories to communicate a truth. the important thing to me in these instances, however, is that those methods of communication were necessary for the understanding of the message. they were essential to the communication of the truth.
 
(i realize i am completely rambling here. indulge me just a little more…i get all geeked up about this stuff…) so my only push (well, i may have more than one) and my issue with the emergent church movement and its para-emergent-church (??…) cousins is that we really honestly define what is necessary in the communication of the truth, and stick to it like…like…i don’t know. patrick could come up with some funny southern metaphor here. this is what has been given to us – not cool programs or revolutionary new ways to interpret scripture. when we do not “stick to the script” (in an inspired-by-the-spirit way, of course), three things suffer.
 
first, the church corporate. as we are seeing now, the church frustrates itself when it substitutes hard work and study for relevance. it looses its identity and doesn’t fit anywhere because it has lost sight of its place in the created order, so to speak. second, the un-churched, who suffer from the church’s lack of infusion of truth, and from poor representation of redeemed minds (which, like unredeemed minds, can think and reason and identify, but unlike unredeemed minds, hold the keys to eternal life). third, the individual christ-follower is hindered in his own spiritual walk, because he has become convinced that the truth itself is not convicting or compelling enough. this is an affront to the nature of truth, nature of his sanctified life, and introduces doubt about the character of God himself.
 
okay. i am way off in the weeds now. sorry. i am really passionate about this stuff, and as i read and study more, it’s becoming more and more clear and urgent to me. this very afternoon, during lunch, i was watching TLC and a commercial came on for the united methodist church: “what if ecology was part of the church’s theology?” the sultry voice asked, as the picture showed perfect little children running through an untainted field in the untainted sunlight. if ecology was part of the church’s theology, i could swallow that. but what i’m afraid is happening is that we are starting to believe that telling a good, curse-free story or building a house or visiting an elderly person or picking up trash or running through an untained field in the untainted sunlight is theology. when in reality it’s more like that bread commercial than anything else.
 
these things are good things. bread – and commercials for it – is good. i wish i did more of these things. i think christians should do these things. i also think that they should not ever, ever exchange the truth of God for a lie. anything that is not the truth is a lie.
 
okay i really am going now. sorry about the ramble, but i’m sitting in a too-quiet office, maybe that’s part of the problem. would love to hear your thoughts on this or anything else.
 
please greet your family for me.
peace be with you, brother
-sarah