Confession

I have a confession.

I skipped Church Sunday. It was Mother’s Day and Mom and Dad were at the lake so I rationalized my truancy by taking BBQ and having lunch with Mom. On top of that my mind has been increasingly wrapped around the axle thinking about ‘church’ and ‘re-thinking church’ and ‘revitalizing’ church and ‘making disciples vs being disciples’ and how to convince sick churches to get healthy and why Generation X, Y, Z or whatever comes after me doesn’t "get" church like I do and then worrying that perhaps I’ve missed the point all along.

The words from Jim Walker’s book "Dirty Word" kept coming back to me as I drove toward the lake: "The fire that John (Wesley) had started had long been extinguished. What remained was an artifact, an exhibit, and – dare I say it – an idol. As I walked through the New Room, I couldn’t help thinking of all those United Methodist churches I had been to over the years. Shoot, there’s a United Methodist church in every little town, village, and hamlet in America. I couldn’t help wondering if this is what we’ve become – a church perfectly positioned with a very relevant theology and message, but with a missiology that is archaic, frozen in time. Is this what the church in America has become today – a museum, an artifact, an idol?.... The church in America is actually a dying elder that was born between 1800 – 1830.... Hello! That was two hundred years ago! Naturally, these churches and these ministry agencies are coming to the end of their lives. What are we doing about it? Instead of planting new seeds in the ground, instead of birthing new churches so that new ministries can be born, most of us are trying in vain to keep the elder alive. We keep trying to keep the boat afloat. Unfortunately, the boat sits in the middle of a museum with velvet rope draped around it. "Do not touch," reads the sign on the precious silver service. "Come explore our fabulous gift shop," invites the curator."

Yikes.

Walker also says that "The church in America is on the brink of death because we have forgotten our God-given super-objective of communion."

As I thought about all that I heard the words of Mohandas Ghandi "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Then there was that quote that kept running through my mind: "So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around?" (Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) in "You’ve Got Mail!")

Does God speak to us from the Bible or does He speak to us through our daily encounters with a broken world? We like to talk about the church today writing the 29th Chapter of Acts but what will it say? Who will record it and how will they say we did? I’m terrified that far too often we’ll be compared to the Pharisees and they will record that when we were confronted with the situation of the day instead of reaching for the hand of those in pain we reached for the "law." Instead of dealing with the log in our own eye we focused on the speck in theirs. And, truth be told it wasn’t the royal "we" on my mind as much as the uncomfortably close "I".

To top it all off God spoke to me in a very strange way, yet clearer than I’ve heard in quite awhile. I was listening to Shania Twain – much louder than these old ears should have been subjected to – and two songs just jumped out and smacked me upside the head. I kept playing them over and over. Hey, these are "love songs" I kept thinking to myself. Yet, all the while I felt this finger poking me in the chest and heard God saying "Do you get it? That’s how much I love you, how close I want our relationship to be, and just how much you are to love the world in return."

Listen to some of the words from the first one titled "Ain’t No Particular Way" (about love)(in and of itself the title speaks volumes)
There ain’t nowhere it won’t hide
There ain’t no speed it won’t drive
There ain’t no law it won’t break
There ain’t no chance it won’t take
There ain’t no, no particular way

Then, in (Wanna Get To Know You) That Good!
Don’t wanna miss a minute
Wanna be right in it
Do everything you’re doin’
Go everywhere you’re goin’
Wanna know you all over
Till I know you by heart
I wanna know you that good
Like no one knows you
Gonna reach way down deep in your mind
I wanna know you that good

I did put in a WOW CD with current worship and praise songs on it but for some reason I kept hearing the words of Amos (Ch 5, from The Message)

"I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
That's what I want. That's all I want."

Peace

(Shania Twain "Up" - Lyrics copyright 2002 Mercury Records, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc.)