What If…

We Must…

// July 29th, 2008 // Religion

It’s weird how a very few moments can change your perspective.  Last week after church on Sunday we had a bunch of our neighbors and friends over for lunch.  For lack of a better term we did a “potluck” thingy.  The food was great, kids were running around everywhere, we had planned to be outside but everyone stayed in since it was so stinkin’ hot.  I looked around at one point and thought, “This is cool.  It is awesome to have all of these friends and it is amazing what God is doing with relationships here in Spring Hill.” I walked away from that lunch feeling pretty good about how God was using us there in our community.  I really feed off of these times together with friends.

Over the days that followed I had a couple of events that rocked me a bit though.  One morning I was in the front yard and heard a crazy shouting and profanity.  I looked around to see what it was and one of our neighbors was just screaming at her 12 year old son.  I can’t hear repeat what she said but it made me wince.  It’s one of those tough situations where we like this kid too, but it is hard having him around.  He is the perfect example of a person becoming the evil that is done to them.

On another day a similar situation happened where there was a grown man screaming at his son in the front yard, in front of a lot of people, that he was a “freakin idiot” because he had knocked over a bottle and broken it.

I’ve also heard some really crushing stories from other people on our street this week of struggles with finances, moral issues, children and abuse.

All of this to say I am convinced of this.  We must re-examine and move in to praxis what it means to be the the Kingdom of God.  We are so rapped up in our definitions of being the church with our gathering that being the presence of Christ where we are gets second billing (that’s for the super-Christians). 

If we never had another rock it out Sunday gathering, the kingdom would continue, but if we don’t reclaim our ground where we live, work and play as the presence of Christ, we will continue to struggle in this culture.  We must slow down long enough to enter into the lives of those who are around us; we must hear their stories; we must have important conversations; we must be Jesus to them.  I love the Bible and worship deeply but it must not define who we are.  There is no test at the end for what we know but there is examination for how we loved others with what has been given to us.  We must, in my opinion, get out of our houses and into the lives of those who live and work and play around us.

Peace ~