if only they knew...

"no one would love me if they knew, all the things i hide" Caedmon's Call- Love Alone

i think in the darkest part of our hearts, each of us has identified with that statement at some time or another, possibly more often than not. we live in a world surrounded by people that refuse to allow anyone to know who they truly are, for fear of rejection or judgment. unfortunately, we have each gone to churches where this holds as well. rather than being a place where people are authentic and real and transparent, all too often church is a place where people pretend to be something that they are not.

a few of our tasks as a congregation will be to encourage authenticity, while also encouraging growth and change. we need to be a safe place, where people can know that god wants them just as they are, but we also need to let them know that god is not content to leave them as they are. this is an incredibly difficult task, and as such, it will take each of us being very much honest and very much open about our struggles as well as our triumphs. there are, of course, boundaries and times when certain things are appropriate and inappropriate. this is a part of the journey we are embarking on. how do you think we can bring this about? what are some practical ways to implement this type of honest community?

bethany, thanks for sharing about your life. it is good for me to have an update and that is helpful while we pray for you. you guys can pray for me, i really am hating school right now. i realize that i need to go, and the things i learn will help me in ministry, but i also just want to get there and begin. it is also hard for me to watch robin work really hard so that i can finish school. i want to be able to help. what needs do you have?

a world drowning...

"...It is waking up to the realization that the church isn't here for we who believe, but rather that we in fact are the church, and we are here for a world drowning in disbelief. Relevant engagement of culture, when born out of the heart of God, is less about marketing and more about passion. It is Paul offering up his own damnation if only Israel could be saved. It is fleshed out in the willingness to become all things to all men that we might somehow save some." Erwin McManus in The Church in Emerging Culture
most of us have heard a lot of things about becoming all things to all people. some use it as an excuse to do whatever they want, others use it as a reason to be even more legalistic than they were previously. things we need to think about as a community are, what kinds of things are we going to be doing to draw people into our fellowship? will we do some things that would make us seem more like a business?

i personally am against things like billboards for churches, slick advertising campaigns in order to bring more people in. i dont think that is what paul meant. i think paul was talking about meeting people where they are, in the places they live and work, and letting them know that they can belong to a group that will accept and love them the way they are, all while refusing to let them stay that way. how we go about implementing this on a day to day basis may take some work, some practice and some experimenting.

what does it mean to you?

So we can understand...

"...Because although he (Jesus) knows us, we do not know him very well. We are lonely and empty because we do not know him very well. We are vacant inside, deafened by the continual wind of our emptiness, and only his presence can fill us. Yet we fail to know him well. Sometimes this is because we don't want to know him and sometimes because we don't know how.
Why do people continually want to revise the prevailing view of Jesus?
To relieve the pain of this dilemma by changing Jesus into something we can understand.
What is Jesus' alternative plan?
To change us into something that can understand him..." (Frederica Mathewes-Green from The Church in Emerging Culture

most of us are currently going through something right now, be it a change in job, change in town, change in anything, that seem difficult. it may be all of those things. i think the challenge for us, is to view these things through God's eyes. to see that maybe he has a plan, and maybe that plan involves some difficulty right now. i think for each of us, god wants us to be different tomorrow than we are today, to be closer to knowing him, closer to following him as we should.

i know for me, i am having to learn that i can't do everything. that sometimes i have to let other people do difficult things to help me, and that is a part of life with others. what is god teaching you? as he prepares you to go and do this thing in denver, what are some lessons you are having to learn?

a few books you guys may like to pick up, and i know we all wish we had more time for reading, but i think these would help considering the type of church we would like to be: A Primer on Postmodernism by Stan Grenz and the book i quoted at the beginning. if you all would like i can continue to recommend books, just let me know. or if you have a book that you think would benefit our little project, post it.