May people see our churches and know that mere human beings could not have created what they experienced. May we seek the priorities of the early church and trust God to once again produce the fruit of the early church.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Read this... seriously
Stop what you're doing and read this article. My prayer is the same as Francis Chan's:
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2 comments:
WoW.
Thank you for linking this. I am saving it to the desktop so I can read it again.
WoW. I am just blown away. Never have I read or heard anything that so closely matches this almost physical craving that I have had for the real church.
I am almost speechless. And we know how rare that is. I did say *almost*.
--- Well, I've actually attempted to add to this comment a few times now and just can't seem to make the words work right now. Perhaps I'll come back to it later. It's all kind of overwhelming!
While there is way too much there for me to comment on, I did want to just briefly speak about the following quote:
"Start with what you can control. In other words, start with yourself. It's wrong to blame others for the condition of the church. And it's silly for leaders to blame followers. God wasn't satisfied when Adam blamed Eve or when Eve blamed the serpent."
This is precisely what I have been working on lately. I write in a bit more detail at my blog:www.xanga.com/jaimeech
There have been lots of problems at the churches we have fellowshipped with in the past... but the BIGGEST problem was that we were not who we are, unapologetically, and we didn't insist on that same openness from others.
It is so cool to see that kind of shared life in Acts and to realize that is still possible to live like that today... that this was not one of those "cultural things," as it wasn't natural for the first Christians to live like that... that's why people noticed their love for one another... that kind of thing was not just happening anywhere; it was an obvious Jesus-thing.
I have so much hope for a corporate life lived in the Spirit. That is the true expression of God to an unbelieving world (and the believing too!)... All the pieces of the big Jesus-puzzle put together, one heart, one mind... Completely breathtakingly awesome...
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