I am confident, after years of contact with a gracious God, that he is far more patient with the contemporary Western church than I am. (I just realized that was pretty audacious of me to start and end that sentence with the phrase "I am"... speaking of fear and trembling.)
Age is teaching me to be more gracious. I think. But I hear the hateful rhetoric on one end of the continuum, and the pop-psych-fluff on the other end and think, "What is this all about?" I will put the three mini-sermons I heard yesterday from Ashlyn, Abbie, and Anna up against any of that nonsense any day.
I am at least taking a cue from the idea "If the Church Were Christian." Despite the arrogance associated with such an approach (on my part, I admit), I still wonder what God is up to with the church these days? I truly believe many churches are still out there who desperately seek the leading of God's Spirit. I believe many of us long for nothing more than to please God with faithful gatherings of his children. Admittedly, we are all couched in our traditions, some of them good, some of them just plain silly. I remember one time at a church long ago and far away when a Samoan dancer performed for our youth group with his drum and sword. Someone came up to me and asked me why we would allow a drum during a devotional. I thought, "He has a sword and weighs 300 pounds; are you going to tell him what to do?"
Why do churches get so caught up in answering questions no one is asking?
