Master Magnet
Our family recently moved to Colorado — the culmination of much desire, excitement, passion and vision.
And yet, despite the energy and impetus behind the move, we are not exempt from the difficulties of establishing a new sense of place. There are just a few events in life that rank at the top of the anxiety-producing list: death, loss of a job, divorce, and MOVING!
Amongst the immense newness of the move is the challenge of finding a faith community. I am finding that this is at the crux of much of my longing and disappointment. My family has been diligent and patient (well, mostly) to visit new places almost each week for the past couple of months. We have been both amazed (that there are so many good churches and communities of believers) and disappointed (that somehow they just don’t seem to “fit”). The search continues.
Here’s the challenge I face: I am realizing that I want SO much from a church/faith community. I want authenticity, grace, honesty about brokenness combined with a firm grip on God’s redemption. I want it to be small enough to not be just a number, but big enough to be established. I want a church that places a high value on the Word, theology, learning and personal growth while at the same time allowing the mystery of God to pervade and overwhelm our understanding of Him. I want order and liturgy alongside of the Spirit’s freedom. I want to celebrate the Christian rites, without them being empty rituals. I want candles, cathedrals, incense and stained glass without the spiritual deadness and distance that seems to fill many of the ancient places. I want missions of evangelism, discipleship, justice and “true religion” without colonialism or Western imposition. I want my children to WANT to go to church because of their love of Jesus and not just their love of programs — and yet I want them to see church as a place to play, make friends, and be crazy. Oh, my desires far exceed any church’s ability to meet them.
As a result, the landscape of my heart has begun to grow thunderous with desire. I most certainly don’t want to “settle.” And I most certainly do not want my pride or pretentiousness to preclude my involvement in the lives of men and women who truly love and follow hard after Jesus. Good churches abound. Why then does has my heart not yet found a home?
How have you made the decision to be involved in your faith community? What advice can you give? Where are the places of longing in your heart that remain unanswered? What desires for community do you think we will continue to hold until glory?
The last church we visited (this past Sunday) had this snippet from Charles Spurgeon in the bulletin. I was so drawn to his words, I wanted to share them with you:
[blockquote]The master-magnet of the gospel is not fear, but love. Penitents are drawn to Christ rather than driven. The most frequent impulse that leads men to Jesus is hope that in Him they may find salvation. Truly, even then they are moved by fear of the evil which they would escape; but their feet are led to fly toward Him by the hope in His gentleness, His goodness, His readiness to receive sinners.
Hope in that mercy of God which endures forever is the great cord which draws men to repentance. Consequently, after the Lord had sounded the clarion note of warning, He touched the harp strings of grace and brought forth from them notes both soft and sweet, cheering the sad, and encouraging the despondent: these notes He knew would be heard where even the trumpet sounded not.
I am glad, therefore, that I may write to God’s people and set forth God’s love as the reason they should love Him in return. “We love him because he first loved us” is the great law of the Christian life. In proportion as we recognize the love of God and know somewhat of its height, and depth, and length, and breadth, our hearts will be graciously affected by it.[/blockquote]
October 12, 2010 All Blog Posts, Random Stuff, Reflections on Jesus
I’ve done a lot of mulling over mystery in the past 5 years. Prior to that, I had it [everything] figured out. That really didn’t work out so well, and is a story for a different discussion.
Mystery as it relates to community for me brings up these words… messy/surprising/valuable.
With messy, I find that the longer I’m walking along the same path with friends, the easier it is to find faults and harder it is to keep in step. I think there’s a battle there too, because the longer the walk together, the greater the friendship and stronger influence in each other’s lives. So, “messy” seems to be the remainder of a division problem that doesn’t work out right in this world. (25 / 7 = 3 and then some) Sin, the enemy and probably a lot of other things get in the way and keep perfection out of our reality.
But surprising happens too. After making a similar cross-country move to Colorado in 2005, I was encouraged and surprised at the relationships that came our way. Some in the form of friends living down the road, some on the other end of the phone or keyboard, and some dropping by out of the blue to listen/talk/laugh/counsel. I never expected to find a new comrade in Laramie, a mentor from 12 years ago that I now have lunch with every other Monday, or even a newly-planted family looking for community that I can relate with… because I was there not too long ago myself. I like the mystery of this. I just don’t know what God has in queue for me next… or better yet, who God has for me.
And the reason I look forward to it is that in the end, people are valuable. Important. Amazing. And in throwing some words up here over lunch, I’m reminded that I’m not too great at keeping that in focus. But I know that my life would lose incredible layers of color and texture if my wife were not a part of it, or my kids, or any of the surprises that God has given me to walk alongside over the years. So I’ll take the work-in-progress, paint-smeared, over-saturated canvas of “messy/surprising/valuable” rather than the flat-white, copy-ready, uncreased, predictably perfect 8.5×11 of “sterile/hum-drum/disposable.”
Bart: I too think a lot about “messy.” It’s a funny thing, actually. Do we really think that God created the world to be sterile, clean and surgical? I don’t get that impression when I spend any amount of time outdoors. My family just went camping for the last time this season up in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was absolutely out-of-your-mind beautiful, fierce, and peaceful. And though we might say that it was “pristine,” somehow the word “messy” also seems to sum it up. The dirt, weeds, elk poop, mixture of new life and new death, mud and dust…all combined with little kids and dogs = the epitome of messy.
I find it fascinating that God’s natural world, the direct creative work of His hands, is naturally messy. Thanks for your thoughts, man!
I couldn’t agree more – messy seems to be a part of God’s grace in some strange ways. I also find it a liittle amusing that a guy I met on summer project after my freshman year and a guy I met while in seminary apparently know each other (assuming that this Bart is in fact Bart Lillie?).
Anyway, I just wanted to say Chris that I feel for you and your family as you look for a church home. Just this morning during our service I had a chance to stand up and say thank you to our church for being such an amazing community and family to us through some very difficult years. It is very much the type of church that you describe above and over the years we have found that indeed the relationships and the people (especially us) are indeed messy. A church that is able to hold in balance the twin truths that we are utterly sinful, flawed, an messy as well as glorious, redeemed, and beautiful is a wonderful thing.
T.S. Eliot wrote, “What life have you, if you have not life together? There is not life that is not in community, And no community not lived in praise of GOD.”
Melissa and I will be praying for you guys.
Ron: So good to hear from you! Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. Yes, the journey towards community is rife with brokenness and anticipation. I celebrate with you that you and Melissa have found a family that chooses to stand together through the desert times. What an amazing gift. Blessings.