We The Church

A Christmas Eve Prayer

Holidays, We The Church Leave a comment

Gracious, loving, and merciful God. Those lyrics from “O Little Town of Bethlehem hold so much meaning…The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

Just as it was at the first Christmas, this is a time for many filled with heartache. We have seen division, hatred, darkness this year globally and for many, personally. And so, Christmas is marked by pain, loneliness, fear, and confusion. But, you are familiar with this sorrow. At the time of your arrival as a baby, the world was full of these things. Parents were losing children because of a government that was threatened by the promise of you. A young girl was facing rejection because of her choice to be obedient. Her family was turned away because their presence made people uncomfortable. Your people, The Israelites, had been waiting for a word from you for 400 years.

And your answer to their heartache was for The Word they waited on to be wrapped up in flesh. The one who had been the agent of creation, who had been and still holds all things together, left his throne to become man. We are grateful that you never gave up being God, but that you did see fit to also become like us, to step into skin, into the mess we made of your perfect creation…and by being both God and man, you created the possibility for us to be reconciled with our Creator.

This is the beauty of Christmas. That, at just the right time, according to Your plan, Father, you sent your Son, to become like us. To walk among us. To feel pain, loneliness, fear, confusion. Not to fix our mess from afar but to walk with us in it. The story of Christmas without the context of Easter is lacking. We have hope not only because you put on flesh and came as a little baby, but because you lived a life we had no hope of living, you chose to face death on our behalf, and you conquered death when you rose again. Your birth, life, death, and resurrection, gave us hope and it continues to give us hope.

We pause now and ask that you would breath hope into the hurting places we carry with us tonight and pour your light into the darkness that seems so heavy in our world right now.
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Thank you that joy is possible even in sorrow because we have a high priest who knows what it is like to walk this road. Thank you that joy is possible because you have defeated the power of sin and are still offering new life to those who believe. Thank you that there is reason to celebrate now and every day because you came to reconcile, you came that we might have life to the fullest. And that life is only found in you.

Just as you, Christ, came to dwell among men, all those years ago, You, Holy Spirit, dwell among us now. So when we seek satisfaction in things that will not satisfy, when we search for solutions that will not bring peace, remind us, that our satisfaction, and the ultimate solution invaded this world as a baby…and all authority rests on HIS shoulders. We can cease striving because He is sovereign. And while our God is not tame, He is good.

And Lord, we confess that all too often we find ourselves wrapped up in defending your character rather than reflecting your character. You have asked us to live out the beauty of Christmas in our lives, to follow your lead as we step into the hurting world around us. To love others, not because they value the things we value, but because we find common ground in our inability to rescue ourselves. We find common ground in our need for a Creator who became the creature so that we might find a place in the family of God. Help us, as your people, as a church, as individuals, to echo the beauty of Christmas all year long. The hopes and fears of all the years are still met only in you.

Amen

A*part

Student Ministry, We The Church View all 3 comments

Student Ministry. It’s a funny world. Constantly changing. We have just a few years to help students understand The Gospel and help them find their place in the family of God. But in a culture that is getting busier and busier and defining success by fatigue, in a culture that no longer values attending church as a family, how do you help students understand?

In praying and prepping for our Spring teaching series for Wednesday night student services, my heart kept returning to the lack of connection our students have with the whole of the church. Our students show up and press in on Wednesdays, surrounded by peers, but on Sunday mornings, the pews are empty save a handful who come because “that is what my family does”.  Our church notices the absence and everyone has ideas about how to get students there. But often times, we are wanting the old methods to work in today’s context, and that just doesn’t cut it.

I think a big reason we aren’t seeing students in church is because they don’t see the value of the church and they don’t feel valued by the church. We have failed to communicate…and to live in the benefit of the family of God.

Sponsoring a child and adopting a child are two very different things*. I sponsor a little girl in El Salvador. Once a month, some money goes out of my account to provide for some basic needs she has. On occasion, I write her a letter telling her about my family or my job or my favorite color. It’s great. I love that I get to support her in a small way. I hope to meet her one day and hug her neck. But, the “requirement” of our relationship is minimal as is the benefit. Were I to adopt this little one, things would look very different. There would be a language gap we would have to learn to navigate. There would be tears that I would have to wipe away and tantrums I’d have to learn to react to appropriately. She would have to deal with an impatient mama. She would have to wait for me to fix her meals. She would hate me for not being gentle enough when combing out her tangled hair. I would have to discipline and she would hate to be disciplined. But, I would know what it is like to love someone as a mother. I would know the joy of seeing her grow and overcome challenges. I would be able to hold her and comfort her. She would teach me about having the trust of a child. She would make me laugh in ways only a mother does. She would twirl and spin and let me delight in her. These are difficulties and benefits that don’t come with a distant, minimal relationship. I am not void of responsibility for her, but I can only do so much from here. She has a place in my heart but due to the nature of our relationship, she does not always have a place in my awareness.

Some of you may know too, the difficulty of loving a family member who has chosen to live apart from the family. She is still your aunt, sister, cousin. He is still your brother, dad, uncle. But they have cut themselves off from the unit. And in this distance, they miss out on the benefit (along with the challenge) of being a part of the family. And, they are not the only ones missing out. The whole family is now different, less than. That family member brings something to the table that no other cousin, sibling, parent can and in their absence, the family is without the benefit of that relationship.

The Church is the same. We can choose to be a part of the family or apart from the family. Choosing to be a part of Her will be harder. There will be fights and wounds. There will be wars of words. There will be, often unwanted, discipline. But there will also be walking through hard days together. There will be encouragement for the weak times and mutual celebration for the victory days. There will be tears shed with the hurting and laughter in the unexpected ridiculous. And the family needs you to be a part of Her. You bring questions that we need to consider. You bring laughter that will make us better. You bring abilities that no one else does. And if you are apart from us, we will be lacking. You and I, if we are in Christ, will always belong to the family of God. We cannot lose our place at the table. However, we have a choice to make. Be a part of or apart from our family.

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*Child sponsorship is highly valuable and can change lives. If you are interested in sponsoring a child, please check out Compassion International.

Compassion is a holistic child development ministry that focuses on the full development of the child.  Because of that, we release children from poverty, not merely sustain them through it. Many organizations focus on only one aspect of poverty. Compassion also recognizes that the children we serve have unique needs and unique gifts. Therefore, we work at the grassroots level to identify and meet the specific needs of the world’s poorest children through church partnership. In doing so, Compassion addresses the spiritual, economic, social and physical aspects of poverty so that children may become responsible and fulfilled Christian adults.

In the Midst of the Borderlands

A Place for Pain, Current Events, Risk, We The Church View all 3 comments

Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice.

Three black men who lost their lives at the hands of white policemen.

I have been so heavy-hearted lately over these stories. The night that the decision in the Mike Brown case was announced, I was up for hours watching live coverage of Ferguson- -heartbroken for the people this decision was directly affecting. Hurting for Mike Brown’s family as the still very tender wound of losing a son was ripped open again in the public eye. Wondering what it must be like for black Americans. Wondering what the grand jury members were feeling and thinking that night. Wondering what the spouses and children of officers must be feeling as they send them out to a city of people who see them as the enemy. Wondering what one is supposed to do in the face of such fear and anger and hurt. Wondering and praying.

Now,  do I have opinions about all of this? Absolutely. Are they well informed opinions? Probably not well-enough informed. Right, wrong, lawful, unlawful, an issue of race or of criminal behavior? These things need to be addressed, but in the proper setting, which this particular blog (and many other blogs, that have attempted anyways) is not.

These are the borderlands of “Bedrocks and Borderlands”. There are foundational truths(bedrocks) that we set ground ourselves in as we navigate the challenging terrain before us (borderlands).  I want to take a look at the bedrock and borderland issues before us.

Bedrocks:

-All people were created in the image of God and are intrinsically valuable as a result.

-God, as the supreme creative One, made people to be different. Different gifts, passions, personalities, skin color.

-People were created to live in perfect unity with one another and with God.

-Sin destroyed that unity.

-Later, human arrogance prompted God to confuse language and the physical divide became greater (the spiritual divide is a far as it will ever be).

-Christ made a way for us to be reconciled to God and one another.

-If we know Christ, we are His ambassadors and are tasked with the ministry of reconciliation.

-Because we live in the space between already being justified, but not yet being fully sanctified, carrying out that ministry is difficult.

–All authority rests on His shoulders.

-All truth belongs to God.

Borderlands:

-There is a racial divide in our country.

-There is an imperfect governing system.

-There are countless news sources feeding us different angles and sometimes different stories all together.

-There is the internet and social media, which means anyone, anywhere can share their opinion with the entire world in seconds.

-There are people that are hurting and terrified on both sides of the wall. 

Now, the question becomes, how do the bedrocks help us navigate the borderlands?

If all people are intrinsically valuable because they are made in the image of God, then how we treat and view people needs to change. It is one thing for someone who doesn’t know Christ to live in the world of division but as Christ-followers, we have no excuse. Christ came to reconcile. He gave us the ministry of reconciliation. If our words and actions are speaking into the division rather than speaking into unity, then we are ignoring the blood of Christ. Arrogance caused the division. And arrogance will continue to divide.

If all authority rests on God’s shoulders, then even in a country where the government is self-seeking, or making choices that we don’t agree with, we can trust God. People are broken (sin, remember?). No President, no Mayor, no officer of the law will ever be able to bring peace. They will never be able to even hold up the law they put in place, much less the laws of God. I can’t. You can’t. None of us can. So, when governments make poor choices, even evil choices, when grand juries make decisions we feel are wrong, when we feel oppressed or afraid because of government, when we do our best to govern rightly and people hate us, we trust God.

When we hear reports on the news, flip the channel and hear a different report, surf the internet and find yet another contradicting story, we don’t believe everything we hear. We don’t trust one news source. If we really want to know the facts, we search for them rather than letting them be spoon fed to us. And when we can’t get to the bottom of things, we thank God that what we can’t figure out, He already knows.

And when we can’t get to the bottom of things, we don’t parade around as though we have. Yes, it is easy to voice our opinions and the world of social media has opened the door for everyone to be a lawyer, journalist, jury, etc. But, just because we CAN share our opinions doesn’t mean we should.

When people are hurting and afraid, what is the proper response? Empathy and compassion. More listening than talking.

I’m not suggesting we compromise truth, but I am suggesting that maybe we don’t have a full enough grasp on the situation at large to fully understand truth. And, I am suggesting that even if we do have a good grasp on truth, it doesn’t excuse us from treating people with dignity. We should be moving toward each other but instead, we are drawing lines in the sand and demanding that people pick sides.

As adults, we have a  responsibility to teach the next generation. I can tell you from my own experience and from observing the experiences of many others, that if the only time parents and adults talk about people who are not like them is in a political context, then what our kids will hear is hate and fear. If we are not intentional about stepping into community with people who look, think, and live differently than us, than our kids will not learn to love. And if we think we don’t have a problem with race, or other differences, then I would suggest that, possibly, it is because we have moved into an area of town where we don’t have to be confronted with it. If that is the case, then it may be that we have a huge problem but have set our lives up in a way where we can ignore our sin rather than deal with it.

Perhaps, rather than weigh in on if the officers were right or wrong, if black communities need to deal with the way they treat each other instead, if people are responding correctly in circumstances, we should listen to understand. Perhaps we should cry with each other. Perhaps we should step into hurting communities ready to help restore. Perhaps we should consider if our faith or our fear is informing our lives.