time since

I wander away from this "place" and there are gaps. But certainly not gaps in what is unfolding in my life.

I have been struggling and pondering and growing in questions of faith, forgiveness, arrogance, community, and confidence. I continue to find out that life with Christ is not simply complete certitude on any of these.

I have had some folks telling me that I am in need of asking for forgiveness for the way I have behaved as a minister. I have had some folks tell me that my ministry has guided them to places of growing in the Spirit of Christ that they never knew possible. Both of these groups of folks are talking about the same words and actions. They have different reactions to them. Could they both be right? That is, in need of forgiveness from some folks and receiving gratitude from other people for the same words and actions?

There are things I have said and done throughout my life I would like to take back. No question.

I also find that within the church right now, there is an inherent conflict that cannot be resolved through making amends. There is a wide gap among folks in the church over their understanding of the church. And I wonder if that gap can be closed? On one hand the church has taught about Jesus and morality and faith. Yet, it was shaped more so by being an organization where people belonged and the bottom lines were numbers of members, how many in worship, how well the offerings came in, and how well everyone got along. These days those kinds of criteria are in steep decline. And more and more people are less loyal to organizations e.g. churches. They don't want to belong to organizations, but they want to grow spiritually...whether it is within the organization or outside of it. And more and more are seeking to do it outside because of the pressures they see inside the organizational church.

God is reaching them outside. That seems like a setup by God. We worked our rears off to keep the church going and now God is using other means and mechanisms to reach people. That leads to more and more blaming and particularly of those who are the ministers of these struggling, declining churches at this point in time. "When something goes wrong, find someone else to blame." The blaming is focused around institutional bench marks such as money, numbers and fellowship. But that is really only a surface issue. We are angry that what we have sought to build up and to give to future generations is now declining and being attacked.

Yet, there are many, many others who are hooking on to the journey with God in Christ wherever it is offered to them. Instead of being resentful and blaming, they are rejoicing that God has simply found them at a new point in their life. Instead of worrying about the present and trying to keep what was, they are trusting the future that God is presenting to us even now. We are only seeing little pieces of that future. And that's the scarey part. We want to see the whole future before we let go of the past.

It has been revealed, but not in the way I want it or I am used to getting the things in my life. I am used to getting things in rock solid, you can touch it and see it and count it fashion. Things such as how much money we have, and how many people we have and how well people get along with one another. The Holy Spirit is revealing to us the future in ways that are as clear, but less materially. So what seems in the church to be a conflict of organizational/institutional health is really God testing us of whether we can see beyond those kinds of measures to the truth of the Spirit.

The Apostle Paul writes over and over again about this tension between spirit and flesh. It is an age old struggle and conflict. And we are in the midst of it in the church in the Western world right now. We had our heyday for centuries. It was called Christendom when we imagined that we were the top dog for the whole world. Now in the old bastions of Christendom, the church is down to almost nothing e.g. western Europe and England worship around 10% of their population these days; Canada is down to 20% and dropping fast; the US in the last five years has hit its first big freefall in percentage of attendance. Yet, in Africa and Latin America and Asia the church is burgeoning overnight! Christ is alive. The Spirit of God is more real. They can see through our materialism to see the true fruits of the Spirit. We have become the victims of our own "success." For when the material/flesh standards are in decline, we think the church is in decline. God keeps saying to us that that isn't so. But we can't hear it. And we spiral down into a morass of resentment, blaming and anger. No church will ever be alive with those marks. They are not the fruits of the spirit. The devil has won when those are the marks of the church.

I keep trying to reach out to those settings and those people both in and outside of the "church" who are living and growing by the marks of the church and the fruits of the spirit as Jesus, Paul, Peter and others cast them for us. I am grateful to be part of a community of people who are seeking to let go of the certainty of the past, which is becoming more and more uncertain, and to trust the gift of the future, the kingdom of God, which Jesus Christ is ushering in right now. I want to see all the glory and victory. But God hasn't chosen to reveal all that to us. Yet, God is revealing such a gift of life, love, hope and faith that I can taste bits of the glory and victory, even when I can't see it the way my flesh wants to see it. Thanks be to God. God lives, even as we die. But then, in Christ, the Spirit, we never die!

the death of a friend

Therese Littlejohn died a week and a half ago. Therese is a friend, a neighbor, a member of our church. She was 46 years old. She died of breast cancer. Her daughters - Madison 11 and Petyon 10 - are friends of my daughters and they are part of our Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts carpool. Kate babysat for them last night. The last time Therese was out before she died was to worship at our ChristStream service two weeks before Christmas. Earlier that week I had driven her to school for the parents conferences with teachers. We had a good time!

I drive by the house where her husband Pete and the girls continue live every day since it is two blocks from our house and on my route out of our neighborhood. I look at their house everytime. I miss Therese, but I don't feel overwhelming sadness. She talked with me a lot over the past year about her dying. She wanted to live longer especially because of the ages of her daughters, but she knew she probably wouldn't. She had outlived by three years the last remaining member of her cancer support group (she lived with cancer for 10 years).

Madison and Petyon feel like daughters to me. Madison has been in the carpool for three years and Peyton for two years. Plus, they are at our house and especially our Molly is at their house a lot.

I find myself already talking with Therese in the slowly creeping up thoughts of my mind. I picture her and find that through thoughts I am communicating with her. I don't imagine this as "beyond the grave" stuff. It just is communcation. I don't need to explain it so it fits a modern understanding of stuff. It is there.

This has helped me with a lot of anxiousness I have been feeling. Let it go, David. Therese has. She had to. You have to, too. You can't control it. Nothing that you or I do is permanent. At some point in time when we are living or after we have died here on earth, everything we have done will be changed. But what will remain both here and there is living with God. And that's all that matters.