I have been privately recommending Carolyn Arends' blog, Wrestling With Angels, for quite a while now. Today, let me get more specific about that.
The posting from September 26, 2012, "Taste the Soup", is a piece that says what hardly anybody is saying nowadays: showing up at church, even when you don't feel like it, is important. I hope the following excerpts whet your appetite for clicking this link and reading the whole thing.
I've been sliding into pews (or modern equivalents) from infancy; my vocation has taken me to hundreds of churches around the world. I've met some of my dearest friends and endured some of my darkest betrayals in youth rooms, foyers, and sanctuaries. I've cried, sung, prayed, committed, disconnected, recommitted, scribbled sermon notes, doodled, been wounded, been healed, encountered the Mystery, and dozed off—sometimes all in the same service.
Truth is...there are far too many commandments about doing things to and with "one another" and "each other" for any of us to think it can be "just me and Jesus." There is no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian, and if there was, he would at least have Tonto.
The posting from September 26, 2012, "Taste the Soup", is a piece that says what hardly anybody is saying nowadays: showing up at church, even when you don't feel like it, is important. I hope the following excerpts whet your appetite for clicking this link and reading the whole thing.
I've been sliding into pews (or modern equivalents) from infancy; my vocation has taken me to hundreds of churches around the world. I've met some of my dearest friends and endured some of my darkest betrayals in youth rooms, foyers, and sanctuaries. I've cried, sung, prayed, committed, disconnected, recommitted, scribbled sermon notes, doodled, been wounded, been healed, encountered the Mystery, and dozed off—sometimes all in the same service.
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The triune God has always been into community. And community, I am forced to admit, ultimately requires meeting together with flesh and blood folks I cannot "block" or "unfriend" should they become annoying. It means getting close enough to hug and to arm wrestle, to build (and sometimes hold) each other up, even as we risk letting each other down.
* * * * * * *
Truth is...there are far too many commandments about doing things to and with "one another" and "each other" for any of us to think it can be "just me and Jesus." There is no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian, and if there was, he would at least have Tonto.
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