thinking out loud
try this on for size....driving home i began wondering why do we sometimes feel a draw to a "church service"? is it because we've lost discipline during the week and haven't connected with God? is it because we've lost touch with spirituality and some how separated it from our daily living/habits?
25 September 2005
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6 comments:
good thoughts. could it be we have found a group of people whom God uses in community to continue forming us? so it is also oa means of grace whereby the iron sharpens iron in the attempts to both live together in what Willard calls a "community of prayerful love" and at the same time find ways together to be a blessing to the larger community in which one finds herself/himself.
i would agree with todd. case in point, our new worship leader i inwardly call "liberace" i used to be a part of the worship team and led worship. it kind of irks me sometimes that now at church everything feels so performance-
oriented, so put on, which is so not what i am about. however, i remember one week i was struggling with the worship style and looked out from the platform on the people singing and i felt such a bond with them- a knowledge of many of them that is deep and penetrating.
and so these days i am a lot more silent during worship, but praying more for people the holy spirit points out to me around me and that's a powerful thing.
i recognize that church is more than "good" worship or "good" preaching, but it's about the people that make up the structure of a body.
this morning i saw a couple enter the church who i had prayed over a few weeks ago because his brother had cancer. just the night before i prayed over him, my cousin had told me her diagnosis from the doctor that her cancer had disappeared. in that moment he conveyed what he sought prayer for, it was revealed to me how in this instance God wanted to knit us together and i was suppose to physically lay hands on this man and his wife and pray for them.
this morning i saw them and hadn't gotten any prognosis recently on his brother. i asked simply, "sir, how is your brother," as he was walking upstairs, with his back to me. he turned around with a ravaged look in his eyes, kind of like a fresh wound where the bandage is lifted up at a corner and said, "he died." but then he told me he was able to spend his brother's last days with him. and that one of the last things his brother told him, as if coming out of a vision was "there are so many rooms." and that filled him with hope and made his load a little lighter.
i have nothing in common with this man really, and yet God in His divine wisdom and grace has positioned us to be in the same community, to be strength and wisdom to each other. i think if the church forgets who she is and the power she has, it's a waste. but when you see people's lives actively changing and encouraging you in your own journey of weakness and flesh, you see there's so much possibility for change to be a reality. "there are so many rooms."
that's power manifest on earth.
i like what both you said i think that those are all beautiful things. here's my for instance - just yesterday i was sitting in the service trying to hopeful, trying to engage with what was going on, a friend and i looke at each other - wrote a note back and forth and ended up leaving and meeting in an empty room. saw some other people and they relayed to us how they would liked to have joined us in our time together.
i'm just wondering how the service fits in. does it? i recognize the church frontage (building, sunday morning service) as a potential good thing for the purpose of being introduced, or meeting people initially, especially for those coming in off the street - but after a some time is there still a purpose for the church frontage?
well, adam, i can agree with your response also. my old roommate mindy and i, especially when we sit next to each other want to leave the "service" and go spend time hearing how God is at work. sunday was no different, but had i left i would have missed the word God meant to convey to me through our pastor on a topic i am heavily researching and entrenched in. so i guess i don't think it has to be "either or" but that's my take on it i suppose.
i must hope there will always be a need for a "frontage", s i hope there will always be those coming in off the street looking for the Savior. there need always be a teacher available to help with that search and a great starting place is with a pastor.
i'm not advocating no "frontage" at this point i would agree with annelies and say its not either/or but both/and - the "church frontage" definitely has a role i'm trying to work through what that is and how it all ties together. being kingdom incarnate, allowing all access, being a public proclomation of God's love - of a new way of living, and as Todd pointed out being a place for iron sharpening iron - i'd like to believe it's simple but as i struggle to make sense of my own longing, the longing of others, the words of Jesus, etc.
putting it all together is becoming a fun adventure.
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