When one doesn't blog as often, things pile up. It's made it harder to blog regularly.
With so much going on, it's hard to know where to start. I'll just dive in...
Actually, one topic today. It's about the church's witness to the world. It sucks. Worldwide, the church across the board is doing some great things. Missions, feeding those that need it, working on grassroots leves to create jobs that are needed in the rebuilding of certain regions...all of these things and more are being done by churches. However, one thing that the church hasn't quite got is unity.
This is where I'm living right now. Churches can't seem to get along with each other. Specifically American churches...actually American Christians can't get along. So many times in church lives, people seek out the political answer to intra-church issues instead of doing the right thing. Believe me. I've eaten a lot of crow for following some crappy advice on what info to communicate to people. I was advised to give the political answer, when I should have given the right answer. What's worse is that we've set up structures in churches that make it impossible to fix the problem. We've strayed so far away from the manners in which God asked us to live in with each other that it feels nearly hopeless.
In a culture of people looking for authenticity in their leaders...in their churches, there's none to be found. People stray into churches and find that in most cases it's just as fake and overblown as the life they left at their job just a couple days before. Makes me wonder what it would look like if were able to put band-aids and casts on our emotional injuries just like our physical ones. Just the other night at a Bible study I was leading, a student showed up on crutches and with a cast on her foot. She got in to the house and put the crutches down and walked around on her cast like nothing was wrong...but she still had the cast on, and still had the limp to go with it. If things were more visible, maybe we'd know how to show love to the folks that need it. Show love by listening. Not solving, but by merely being present to listen, to cry with, to walk beside...no solution giving allowed.
It's time for the church to be a strong witness to the world in its unity and love for people. The voices from the right wing 'Christian' political perspective probably need to pipe down. The more I listen, the more sure I am that there's not love for people there, and there's no desire for unity...at least not the kind I think God wants. More like borg unity. They've convinced half of America that God only cares about what gay people can and can't do and that God only cares about unborn babies...but forgets about them once their born.
That's not the God I know. I so much want to introduce people to the God who's bigger than all the issues and problems. I want to introduce people to the God that's madly in love with His creation. I want people to know the God that allures us into the desert and speaks tenderly to us. (read Hosea 2)
So, just like Uncle Jesse, I've got my ears on...
