It's Sunday night about 9pm and we're just returning home from visiting a new church that's being planted here in the Bothell area. My wife and I know some of the people who are part of the leadership team there and they've been asking us to come visit for quite awhile now. I have to be honest, I didn't really want to go to church again today but I'm really glad we did. It's a church which focuses on some of the celtic traditions and promotes a very experiential service with prayer stations, communion alters, and confessionals. This isn't the kind of church I could do every week but it was really good for my spirit to have a different worship experience and just slow down and reflect for an hour or so. Upon my reflections I began thinking about this idea of Lordship and what it's really all about. One of the words that came to me was care...Lordship is about caring. Caring for people, creation, our money, our stuff, our health, our time and our talents. Everything God has given to us, everyone God has put into our lives we have a responsibilty to care. So where does Lorship and caring and the church fit into a christ-followers life? Unfortunately I grew up thinking that I really only needed to care for my church and not the church down the road. God has since taught me that there is no one church that's better than the other, big ones, small ones, emerging or traditional, they all belong to Jesus and they all need our care. Tonight I took a moment to care for this church and I sat in silence and prayed that God's blessing would pour out on this body of people. I prayed that God would provide for them and protect the leadership as they work so hard to build a church. Now I sit here and I think about my church, and I ponder how to care more for it. I'm thinking about how I need to surrender my leadership of it to God even more than I have and trust him...I'm thinking of how there are hurting people who I need to pray for more often...I'm thinking of the community our church exist in and how we can love them. If you are on this journey of truly making Jesus the Lord of your life, will you join me in praying for your church? Maybe you're reading this and we go to the same church...will you please pray for God's blesisng on it? What can you do to care for your church? That's a big question...but then again, whenever we're talking about Lordship, we're talking about something big.
Peace and Love
Rex
Peace and Love
Rex
1 comment:
rex, thanks for your thoughts on this subject. i had said to christalle that i really wondered what the Holy Spirit would cause your eyes to see while you were there before you guys came. SO, it's cool to hear what God brought to your heart and mind. i really think you are on to something when we speak of the church as more than just who we see every week. God continues to prompt me with the phrase, "we are all on the same team." this diminishes the competition that vears up when we look at other Bodies of Christ followers and builds a Spirit of unity that is wholly God and what He is about on this earth. and, this also causes me to continue in my thoughts about our worship of God being a "wholistic" experience (whole being our hearts, souls, minds and strength/body). i was at a conference hosted by rich and rose swetman in shoreline at the vineyard church where scot mcknight was speaking and on a friday evening he touched on this just a little. thanks for your thoughts and for your prayers for this community!
peace, heather traub
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