Questions

FYI, for some reason our commenting function is not registering posts, so Lori's post below actually has two comments when it reads zero. The following was going to be a comment, but I decided it was more post worthy...

After spending some time this weekend with a real dysfunctional family (and I would argue that all families have some dysfunction, we wouldn't need Jesus if that wasn't so), I guess I still have hope we'll be able to rise above our 'roles' and keep pressing into the kingdom. I think there are two clear choices here (probably more, but for simplification sake, I'll stick with two.)

1. Stuff our true feelings and questions simultaneously creating the one thing we've worked so hard to avoid - a group of islands only looking out for our own personal needs who gather to consume a certain brand of religious goods - ours happening to be more in the "home church" genre.

2. Keep putting our hard questions and honest feelings out on the table to be processed as a community and allow God to speak through the impossibly difficult and unspeakable.

I think it's pretty obvious which one I'd rather do. I'd sell the farm before number one became the status quo. But frankly, I can't "make" either one of those scenarios happen, nor should I try. That would be manipulation of the worst kind, which we cannot afford right now. However, I can keep forcing the issue (as I think Lori was doing) that we each have a choice - will we risk honesty and the way that leads to a community of broken saints, or will we simply put our masks back on that God has been slowly removing?

Although our gathering the other night was fruitful, I know it only scratched the surface. What are the real questions going through everyone's mind? Here's one of mine. A lot of you know that the starting place in this journey for me was a crisis of my faith. After 20 years of being a Christian, I found myself with very little capacity for intimacy with God. All my mentors had told me, "Good Christians, especially Christian leaders, spend time with God everyday. You must make God your top priority." Well, that's wonderful, but how?

The last few weeks have made me infinitely aware of how vital our actual beliefs are. Mark and I have been talking about this as well. As our friend Mr. Willard says, "We always live up to our beliefs - or down to them, as the case may be." Here's an honest statement: I do not pray often because I do not yet believe that a life of prayer is the preferable way to live my life. It is not because I am just lazy, or haven't heard enough sermons about prayer, or read enough books...it is because I am not utterly convinced that the inward journey in prayer is absolutely essential to the outward journey of mission that Jesus has prepared for me.

Now before you begin praying for a new pastor, I want you to place that statement in line with what Willard says about beliefs. It's not that I think praying more would be a waste of time, it's just that my actions have not yet shown that I really believe it is worth my time to pursue God in prayer.

How can we become so enraptured by life in God's glorious kingdom that we take to disciplines of grace like a baby takes to her mother's milk?