Please take a moment to add your perspective to the survey on the right. If you are recieving this post via a feed subscription (thank you for your subscription), please visit the site: www.subversivereformation.blogspot.com.
Matthew 5:38-48, NASB
"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone want to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only you brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
10 comments:
I think of the system that God designed to take care of the spiritual and physical needs of each community.
Half the people taking your survey crave community. But I wonder if that means that they crave the community they get from church or, like me, know that the church should be about community and do not receive it.
Oh and by the way, not Social Justice since I do not agree with the methods and purpose behind what is commonly referred to as "Social Justice".
I found your survey interesting because I have found myself focused on "church" in my sermons of late and was the central theme of my Pentecost sermon yesterday.
Also, I find your survey lacking mainly in that I found myself needing to choose between options that I had trouble separating from each other.
I landed on "crave community" because I pretty much preached yesterday that the church was the place where we find ourselves drawn into the divine community of the Holy Trinity. Thus both Family and social justice are also things my mind is drawn to when I hear the word "church". lastly what I really hear is that community of those gathered together in the name of Christ in continuity with the 12 apostles and first disciples of Jesus upon whom the Spirit descended.
larry.
thanks for visiting and for your comment. i initially set the survey to enable multiple answers but then changed it to purposefully cause some frustration in order to produce thought about the issue/word even though each answer is independently insufficient. if i hadn't known the thought process behind the development of the survey and i had seen it, i probably would have completely dismissed it thinking that i could not pick only one and that such categorization within the church is too simplistic. so thank you for being more thoughtful than me. i agree about community, family, and justice.
jp.
that is what i wonder as well. i would ask, however... is community about one's own receiving?
Hi Travis,
I thought that it was possible that the survey was to provoke thought and so force the respondents to pick one but wasn't sure.
BTW I have looked around on your blog and have found it thoughtful. I plan to be back.
I found myself pondering between answers and arrived at a situation much like that about which JP was speaking- I crave community because I'm not receiving it at church. I was torn between that response and the "want to regurgitate" choice.
My pastor and I have been talking a lot recently about some changes that need to take place within our church to restore community. Sometime we'll have to talk.
I love the Church. Despite the disunity and how far she comes from what she is meant to be at times God has used the Church instrumentally in my life. Also we need to stop waiting for the church to be the church or live up to her potential and start individually and as groups start living out what it means to be the church. How can the beautiful bride of Christ ever make someone regurgitate?
When I hear the word "church" I picture this lovely bride, adorned in white, being presented to her Groom in an complete, perfect union. Until that wedding ceremony, the bride is being prepared with great care by the Holy Spirit. And yes, she has a few warts and wrinkles, but she is God's fiance awaiting the wedding day. Sometimes she acts in ways that confuse me. Sometimes she acts in ways that anger me. But she is still God's fiance. Sometimes she makes me want to regurgitiate. Sometimes she seems extremely selfish. But she is still God's fiance.
I weep as I listen to people demean this beautiful bride in the making as, if her critics are able to see "the speck in her eye while dealing with the log in their own eye."
Until the wedding day, I intend to intently submit to the working of the Holy Spirit in my life, because when I consider God's fiance, I shamfully discover that I am one of the warts on her face. They don't call it "Amazing Grace" for nothing.
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