The Most Important Challenge?
I was asked in a recent online discussion what I thought the single most pressing challenge of today's (and tomorrow's) church was. I answered: "I believe it is willingness to sacrifice itself when called to. Willingness to die that others might live."
We are often so afraid of throwing out the baby with the bathwater that we don't realize the baby has been sick for a long time... getting a rash FROM the bathwater. Or maybe getting frostbite because the water cooled off several hours (or centuries) ago.
Or maybe we accidentally used harsh Selsun Blue instead of Baby Shampoo in the water, so it's burning Baby's skin. Or what if Baby's skin is simply getting all prune-like, and it's time to get out and dry off?
And what if the baby isn't even a baby anymore? What if we've been trying to bathe a toddler in a baby tub, and the toddler just doesn't fit? He's still dirty because there isn't enough water to cover him. The water's become black sewage because Toddler was just running through the drainage ditch in the backyard, unkempt and undisciplined... or what if we drowned the baby? What if we were so worried about keeping the baby in the water that we didn't notice his little head went under?
Maybe we were talking on the phone...
All this to say: don't we trust God to lead the Body forward? Anne Rice said in an interview, "We're too afraid that the devil is winning. He's not winning! WE'RE winning, and we have to start living like it."
Throw out that bathwater! The Holy Spirit will ensure that the baby (the Body of Christ... for Christ's sake!) will survive. Self-protection isn't our calling.
We talk about "change" so much in emerging circles, but too often all we wind up with are the same old machine, retooled or repainted. This machine is breaking down. We have to let God build something new - more than lighting candles, greasing pomade through our faux-mohawks and playing more accoustic worship songs from the 90s... that isn't new - and it certainly isn't "emerging..."
Do we think Jesus is SO fragile? Are we so selfish? When will we let go?
(It's time to dream bigger)
Keywords: baby, bathwater, Body of Christ, dreaming, old machines
Comments
its hard to move forward when the church doesn't even know where its been. God has never failed to move us according to His will at any time in the past, even if people weren't aware of it at the time, or didnt understand, or it didn't happen immediately. why should we think that the present or the future will be any different?
I think, perhaps, that we are so busy praying for God to do something, that we lose sight of the fact that He does it through us. If we are not the ones who will bring change and the fresh air people are so longing for, who will?
Jesus is definitely not fragile, unless things have changed and my Bible didn't get upgraded? Honestly, what are we so afraid of?