Relax

I’m not sure where I picked this up, (I believe I found it online) but I have this quote posted next to my desk. Thought I’d share.

“Just when I get my church all sorted out, sheep from the goats, saved from the damned, hopeless from the hopeful, somebody makes a move, gets out of focus, cuts loose and I see why Jesus never wrote systematic theology.

So you and I can give thanks that the locus of Christian thinking appears to be shifting from north America and northern Europe where people write rules and obey them, to places like Africa and Latin America where people still know how to dance.”

Will Willimon, Leadership Journal, summer 1994

Slow Dancin’

For a dance to go smoothly… do your best not to step on toes. You may have to communicate your leading or communicate and follow, but either way, communicate so that everyone can enjoy the dance.

Getting Authentic

Romans 12: 1-2

1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual[1] act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…

Have we lost this in our current cycle of ‘church’? Romans is an awesome discussion of the faith and all that God has done for man and we come to chapter 12 where true and authentic commitment to God is defined as offering our bodies as ‘living sacrafices’. Seeing that a sacrafice was something that was completely given over to God and could no longer be used for previous purposes, have we currently lost focus on what God wants of his people? Does he want ‘Christians R Us’ with the latest models complete with the newest bells and whistles and brighter boxes? Does God want authentic to mean that we loose reverence and morality along the way for sake of personal freedom (see below)? What is Authentic? Is God pleased with Isle 3?

Romans 12: 1-2 cont’d

… Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.