the sleeping god may wake

I had read this quote once before, but forgot about it. Chris McGrath emailed it to me and I had to share it with you:

“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”
(Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk, Harper & Row, 1982)

read this

If you know how to read, but don’t, how are you better off than those who don’t know how to read?

So, I encourage you to turn off your TVs, grab a tall glass of lemonade (or iced tea if you prefer) and read this book:

Organic Church by Neil Cole

the next step

Christians in America aren’t starved for good teaching. We’re not slacking in our faith for lack of great worship music or places where we can gather to sing songs, talk to other Christians and hear the Bible preached. We’re not hurting for resources. We don’t lack freedom of religion. We aren’t persecuted. It’s not difficult to find a copy of the Bible, they’re pretty much everywhere.

So, since we are so richly blessed, I bet Christians in America are radically living for God. I bet we’re walking out the teachings of the Bible since there are so many great teachers and resources. I bet the church is firing on all cylinders, functioning passionately as the Body of Christ, constantly baptizing new believers and discipling people to truly live as Jesus lived.

Or, are we?

I think it’s pretty clear that the church doesn’t need amazing teachers, talented musicians and singers, nice buildings, and lots of money to thrive. In fact, I sometimes wonder if we would be better off if those things would be stripped away so that we would learn not to focus on them.

Neil Cole wrote, “Christians in America are already educated beyond their obedience, and more education is not the solution.”

Do you think that’s true? Or, do you think we just need more or better education to get the church to wake up and BE the church? Is that what sustained the New Testament church? What’s the next step?

Leonard Sweet says, “Christians have much to learn about faith as a lived experience, not a thought experiment.”

I can’t help but feel that we are sometimes missing the heart of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. I don’t mean just stuff like serving the poor or caring for orphans and widows. That stuff’s important, but it’s just a glimpse of God’s heart for people. What about the Sermon on the Mount for starters? Have you ever read Jesus’ words that day…reading slowly and seriously considering the depth of each part and what it would look like to actually obey Jesus’ teachings?

This is not simply obeying a set of commands, but living a certain life that can only be lived with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Things like Matthew 5:13-16… Being salt and light to a world that is hopeless and dark. Are we doing that here in Hampton Roads?

So, what’s the next step? I think we need to take our Christianity to the streets. We need to bring the light of Christ to our community, here in Hampton Roads. We need to be the church outside of our ‘church buildings’ and live as Jesus lived. This is not a moral lifestyle, but in fact is itself true life.