God never stopped speaking

One of the portions of the church that I am part of are projecting the answer to a question with "God is still speaking." I haven't heard anyone ask if God stopped speaking. I think the question is "Where is God speaking?"

Like the announcement at an Elvis concert "Elvis has left the building." I think the answer is in our world "God has left the building." God is always moving to those places who seek to grow and serve and then reach out. The church has become trapped in a dualism of trying to save itself and be on a mission to the wider world. The church has to be willing to lose its life, as Jesus calls to each disciple, so that it will gain it.

It is no longer about "membership" which is an institutional concern, but about discipleship. Its not about "butts in the pews", but acknowledging as baptised children of God we are already dead and buried. Nothing can kill us. We will not die. We can take up our crosses (the means of the death that society will try to intimidate us with) and go out into the world to now invite others into the journey of discipleship and to baptize them too.

To see some places where God is speaking outside of the "church" go to launchcast.com and search for the videos for Kid Rock of "Lonely Road of Faith" and "Only God Knows Why" and the Black Eyed Peas "Where Is the Love' and Johnny Cash "Hurt" which is a song by the Nine Inch Nails. Kid Rock was banned in my household due to his obscene lyrics, but in these two videos that I just happened to find online, he is a missionary to parts of the world the "church" rarely will go to, using scripture in inobvious ways, on behalf of God. What a paradox! We in the church cannot sit inside and condemn what we don't understand. That's what the pharisees and relgious leaders did with Jesus. (Our mall food court study group is going through the prophet Jeremiah right now. I get the impression that the way Jeremiah was received and heard by the powers that be of Judah is the way we in the church "hear" folks like Kid Rock.)

Jesus didn't stand in the temple and tell people to come to him. He went out to places where rabbis were unheard of to be, down by the lake, in the homes of sinners, and he preached and related in ways and language that people could connect with, not in strange words and images that came from a different era or different experience. Since we are in Christ, we have all the strength. We can give up our prerogatives of turf and culture and go to all those others as servants. Paul makes this clear in 1 Corinthians 5.