Wow! awakeness is really cool! It was funny this morning. I was thinking, "I probably don't even need any coffee this morning...but I think I will have some anyway, just to be sure" ;) So I did, but now I'm a little hyper ;) (If you have no idea what I am talking about, read the post just beneath this one. "what is wrong with me")
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One of my classes today is requiring that we turn in a paper sharing our testimony. I found it to be incredibly difficult. not because it had to be done, but because we were limited to one page only. I couldn't imagine how I was going to get it all onto one page. Perhaps by changing the font to 3 point and single spaced...well anyway, I managed to get it shortened down to a page and a half and had to cut out certain parts. Oh well. The whole paper could be summed up in: "Hi, my name is Laura and I am a sinner. I know that the wages of my sin, or the consequence for my sin, is death. But Christ Jesus, God's son, lived a perfect and sinless life and chose to die in my place so that I could live. So, now that I have accepted Jesus as my savior, I want to share what He did with anyone I meet."
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Lots of thoughts today. This was an interesting weekend. It started on Friday with a meeting, then followed through on Sat/Sun in the sermon at church, then again this morning at chapel. The idea of being missional. Now I am sorry if that term is offensive. I know that there are modern terms that ruffle my feathers too ("relevance" is one of them, "the right worship style" is another, "attendance" is a dirty word to me (when it comes to church), "mega-church" gives me a full body shivver). I am glad that being "missional" has been coming up. Although it is my firm belief that this is no new concept, I am glad that it is finally being recognized.
Maybe I should explain. See, all too often Christians (under the guidance of the church) forget that our primary purpose is to reach the lost. The point is not to become a Christian and then go huddle in a corner and wait for Christ to come back! No, we're supposed to be out there where the yet unbelieving are and sharing about the awesome saving power of Jesus Christ. This can take on several different forms. Some people go to other countries and share with people who have never heard of Christ before. Others go around this country speading the good news, while still other are able to be salt and light in their work place or schools. By and large though, Churches forget to tell people about this last one. There is emphasis on missionaries and supporting them, or getting involved in the local food bank, rescue mission, brother/sister club, but no real thought about being...here it comes...missional in our everyday lives.
We can make a plan to go somewhere and do something. I can go to the food bank and distribute. I can go to the mission and serve. I can join a club that reaches out to kids. Those are really great. But if on my way there I am so consumed with my charitable giving that I don't even see the hurt in the eyes of the person preparing my coffee, what am I but a fake? Or perhaps the deli man, when I asked in passing, says his day is not going too well. I have a choice at that point. Do I ask him if there is something he needs prayer for, or do I look at my watch and see that I really have to go and don't have time to let him drone on? Besides, he may just be a depressed person that never has a good day and what good would I be to him? Yikes! Do you see how easy it is to talk ourselves out of talking to people? This is where we have to make the choice. This is where the rubber (our lives in Christ) meets the road (our decision to live Him out in our lives)...it is in our day to day!
Our day is filled with so many opportunities to reach out to this world! If we can just catch the idea that God wants us to share what he's done with those around us, imagine what could happen! What if we stopped letting this world decide what our day is going to look like and started letting God shape it? After all, He did create the world, it's seems logical that He would have a good idea about what our day should look like too? What if we gave an extra few minutes to the people that everyone else ignores? I'm not saying go out and find someone to minister to...that would fall under the "going out and ministering" category...I am talking about the day to day. The person at the coffee shop counter, the person in line behind you at the grocery store, the guy with the worried look who wants to know what time it is, the person cutting your hair, maybe some one at work who has had a bad day, maybe someone in your block club who breathed a heavy sigh before saying hello, etc. The point is, we don't know who they are or where they will come from, we just know that we need to be ready to be there for them. This is missional. This is Christianity. This is the point.
God bless you!
3 comments:
Yes, Laura, good comments, and if you want to define "missional" by what you said about it, that's fine with me… I am not offended by the word, I just think it is unnecessary, just another attempt to "weigh and measure" which is kind of like the endemic mental fixation of Western civilization.
What you said about going to volunteer at "structured" charitable ministries is okay, but what if you ignore the person in need right under your nose, and does that make you a hypocrite? Well… hmm, so who's in the judgment seat today? I understand where you're coming from on this, but I would caution you, don't be too rigorous on yourself or others. "Everyone gives what they can."
Ultimately, to be ready to see the needy person in front of you is important, but to sometimes fail to take the time to help him or her is not the end of your life as a follower of Christ. To be ready to help is important, but to know when you can and when you cannot help takes experience and the resulting wisdom. This is where discernment and humility come in. Yes, I'd like to go downtown right now and help the first person I see. But do I have the time, the money, the emotional strength and God knows what else? In an odd way, it's like our desire, when we see a cripple, to walk up to that person, lay our hands on him and say, "In the Name of Jesus of Nazareth, get up and walk!" If we have God's permission and command to do this good work (or rather, to allow Him to do the work through us), all will be well, including the cripple. But if He hasn't willed the work, nothing we can do can change that. The same is true of the suffering eyes of a person we are just now passing by, as we hurry off to work or school. If we can help, let's stop and help. If we can't, just to flash a smile might be all we can do if they'll accept it, and we have to leave the rest up to the Lord. At least, at that moment we can cry out to Him, "Send an angel to that person, Lord!" If it's His will that you are that angel, you'll find yourself turning on your heel rather quickly and going to their aid. Otherwise, accept it that though you'd like to help, you cannot. This sounds like taking the easy way out, but believe me, it's not. I am echoing the teaching of my own life with the Lord, as well as the teaching of the fathers and mothers of our Christian Orthodox faith. This is a case in which "wisdom is vindicated in her children."
I hope I haven't muddied the waters for you or offended you in any way; this was not my intention. I just wanted to touch you for a moment.
Go with God, dear sister.
Thank you for the caution, Romanos!
I don't know where to begin. I see so many Christians who don't even see the reason to be ready to share, so my whole point was about actaully seeing need, perhaps even to the point of looking for it.
I too would love to go downtown and pick someone to minister to, but that is not what this is about. This is about being intentional when looking people in the eyes, perhaps thinking, "God loves this person so much, I wonder if He wants me to share that with them somehow?" Maybe it will lead to nothing, but it's a start. Saying hello to someone that you would normally not say hello to and maybe even evering into conversation. It may lead to nothing, but then again, it might, only God knows, but we have got to be ready for when He says "go." We have to be listening for Him to say "now."
Here's my other thought...about being fake. If I am so consumed with what a good person I am for going to volunteer somewhere, itn't this a pride issue. If then, in my puffed up state I forget to listen to God's voice, or worse yet, ignore it, shouldn't I beat myself up a little bit? Perhaps enough so that I realize I need to drag myself to the altar and ask for forgiveness? My point in this is that we remember that we are servants doing the work of our heavenly Father. If on our way to do some good deed for Him, He asks us to stop and help someone else, that is His perogative. I just have to be listening and ready to jump into action when He calls me to, knowing that that is in my original job description anyway.
I don't know if this helps in anyway, but perhaps you can tell this has been on my mind and heart for some time now. :)
Thank you for writing to me. I am certainly not offended by any of your words. ;)
Your sis, Laura
Your response was thoughtful and wise; I think we really are on the same page basically.
"Here's my other thought...about being fake. If I am so consumed with what a good person I am for going to volunteer somewhere, isn't this a pride issue? [It could be, but let's get past it.] If then, in my puffed up state I forget to listen to God's voice, or worse yet, ignore it, shouldn't I beat myself up a little bit? [If you're aware of these things, this is enough of a beating. No need to flagellate! Just say, "Sorry!" Kiss the Lord, and make up.] Perhaps enough so that I realize I need to drag myself to the altar and ask for forgiveness?" [No one should have to drag oneself to the altar. That's not how the Father treats His kids, nor does He expect them to play act and melodramatize. Again, just say "Sorry!" and ask Him, "What's next?"]
What I hear in your words above is the suspicion of a wrong kind of piety that infects especially Catholics, some Orthodox, and even a few Protestants of the "do-gooder" type. There's a kind of looking at yourself just a hair too much, whether to notice either that you're really doing a good job of "helping", or that you are doing a rather lousy job of it. Keeping your eyes on Jesus, radically on Jesus, not on yourself at all if you can help it, is the best way. You don't evaluate even yourself and the things you do or don't do. You trust Jesus so much, that you just do whatever He leads you into. If you goof up, drop the ball, or even run away, and you realise it and there's no way to correct it, you just throw yourself down before Him and just say, "Forgive me!" Then, you put even that behind you, trusting in that forgiveness, trusting radically (that's what "pistévo" means in Greek). This is not making light of either your fault (or sin) or of His grace. It is extending yourself into the region where real faith is possible. The thing to avoid, honestly, is to think about yourself much at all. After all, it's God through Christ who is perfecting you and who has saved your life and sealed you in the Holy Spirit, totally without any work on your part, other than believing on the words of Jesus.
For those who play the game of church and religion, yes, I recommend they navigate the navels of their souls, picking out and bewailing every piece of lint and abasing themselves before the Lord at every opportunity, working out strategies to make sure next time their belly button is loaded with the fair jewels of good deeds and self-mortification. But for those who walk the way of the Cross, who follow the Master Jesus, who strain for the things that are ahead, who never look back at the destruction of the Sodom of their sinful past, whether to celebrate it or to reminisce… for those, of whom the world is not worthy, let them seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, let them take the Kingdom by violence, let them not try to save today's manna for tomorrow, or the remembrance of today's good or ill for tomorrow, for tomorow has enough trouble of its own, let them simply follow the call of Jesus Christ, looking to Him alone who is the author and finisher of our faith.
Hey, sis, when can we read Greek together?
Altogether obnoxious Romanós
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