holiday musings november 26 07

It's been awhile since I posted. Got a little compulsive about blogging there for a time, so I took a holiday from blogging. Got a little political from time to time too - sorry. But as a former seminary professor told me once, "everything's political," so guess I can't avoid that. Faith and conscience and church and work and life - all meshed together in a politically religious experience...(?)

Anyway, I actually feel some kind of cyber-connection in the process of posting that I've missed. My son has begun a PhD at University of Texas on how the Internet and electronic communication has influenced rhetoric and relationships. At least that's what I think he's doing. He'll have to comment more about it...How 'bout it, Will?

I stopped sending lectionary thoughts for a time, not because I'm not reading scripture, but because I'm deferring to the leaders in our covenant groups to do that. We have over half of our congregation in small groups, reading the Bible together every week. I'm preaching each week on one of the week's passages. The leaders are sending their own messages and thoughts out every week, and I don't want to influence the groups' discernment. Isn't a preacher's job, in large part, to excite people to read all about it themselves, to wrestle with meaning and application and grow personally as well as corporately? So, I've stepped back - but I do miss everyone. The word connects us no matter the media.

Amazing things are happening in these groups. The older folks amaze me the most. 90 year olds who have been in church all their lives but NEVER talked about their faith, or questioned the Bible - they're talking and asking and weeping and loving it, thanks to 2 compassionate leaders who are coaxing them out of a frozen chosen state of faith. We have 6-8 black teens in a group and the leaders tell me, they're getting real with each other about their fears and brokenness. The missional spirit is bubbling up and is mostly spontaneous. One of our praise band members showed up at 97 year old Elsie's home to do some repairs. The men's group have begun quarterly "Undie Sundays" to solicit new underwear donations for a men's rescue mission. Another adopted a family for Christmas and still another will be selling fair trade coffee and other items to raise money for missions and new windows in the church. Black and white, young and old, are engaged together in the word. I could go on.

What I see in these groups is the church being the church. When all hell is breaking loose in the institutions (there I go being political again), the fruit of the Spirit is evident in the very diverse believers at South-Broadland PC. It's evident in the worship every single Sunday. And it is such an encouragement to this pastor to see how they are learning to love each other more and more, and are finding ways to love others. It's real, it's simple, and it's possible, if we leaders would just let the church be the church, however the Spirit leads them. For the Spirit is blowing outside the doors of our properties and writing new pages in our rule book. It's simple - they will know we are Christians by our love. They are teaching me a lot.