Check your life at the door
I walked in…
It was a place of beauty.
People loved and were loved and for an hour or so shared their lives. Their hopes, their dreams, faith and doubt…
…and Peace; Peace was the word for the day.
Parents lit a candle symbolizing Peace. Parents, whose son is fighting a war, lit a candle of peace; the irony of life.
And people stood around them, and prayed for them and for all the parents and sons and daughters fighting wars; and we prayed for Peace, Peace in their hearts, Peace on earth…
…and we sang songs of the Prince of Peace and celebrated His birth.
It was a place of beauty, people loved and were loved and shared their lives.
A man prayed, prayed for his son, soon to be baptized, he thanked God for the Peace he found and the Peace his son found and he prayed for the others. And we stood around when the son and the others shared their stories, shared their lives and for a moment we were one, and our stories intertwined. And then they were baptized and we celebrated with the sons and with the parents.
It was a place of beauty, people loved and were loved and shared their lives.
And the pastor spoke, and shared of his life, of the wars he fought, the victory and the defeat, and the Peace he found; and hearts were encouraged, legs were
strengthened, minds were put at ease…
It was a place of beauty, people loved and were loved and shared their lives.
I woke up from a deep sleep…
…I walked in…
…I checked my life at the door.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Check your life at the door...
I wrote this after one particular church service where the opportunities of community were missed for the sake of program.
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Great post! Something struck me this past Sunday in a line from a prayer... "[God]you allow us to ask the questions. We come [to church] for the answers."
ReplyDeleteIt sounded great at first and then it bugged me for the rest of the service. If we're coming to church for answers, that pretty much sets our agenda and expectations. We program our "worship service" accordingly. We consume the program looking for answers. It's "demand and supply".
Lives are checked at the door like a rain coat on a rainy night. We don't need it inside...everything is OK inside. But it's an illusion. Everything is not OK.
In Bible Study on Sunday, our facilitator submitted a case study about a "church member who had recently lost their job and who had not attended church for several weeks." The question presented to our group was simply, "what do you say to this person?" Various forms of, "God has a plan for you...God loves you..." were presented. I was VERY proud of my wife when she said, "I wouldn't bring up God at all. I would sit with them and let them talk. They might be angry with God and need to express that. They might need a friend. What they probably don't need is [god talk]."
We tend to check our lives at the door of church and enter a place where we quickly throw god band-aids on some gaping (very private) wounds. We pick up our lives at the exits and go back out into the rain of very much alone.
Speaking of questions and answers... I was struggling as the new manager of a JIT parts warehouse in Morrison, TN about 7 years ago. Managing 12 people was new to me. My expectations were much higher than those employed. We were desperately looking for a box of parts. I was 20 feet high crawling across dusty racks and through old cobwebs. Then I saw something that caught my eye - a pallet of boxes. On the side of each box was the enscription "Jesus is the answer." In my frustration of trying to find these particular parts, I satirically asked, "Well what the %@*&%#%@&^ is the question?" It was as if God knocked me off that top rack with an almost audible reply -Jesus is the answer. It doesn't matter what the question is! By the way, you guys are way too complex for my feeble, spriritual mind.
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