Summer Worship
At the CBFMO meeting on Friday (which we hosted to great acclaim!) our speaker talked about a church which claimed to practice hospitality but which came much closer to practicing hostility. The churches’ website and promotional material painted a picture of a place where all would be embraced with a warm hug but when visitors went to check it out, they got a cold shoulder.
This is not a problem we have at KBC. We are a welcoming church. But the problem of living up to our rhetoric is a problem at KBC. I don’t think it is worse for us than any other church, but the tension between the talk and the walk are always with us. We have some high ideals: living together in freedom… caring and reconciling… being the presence of Christ… These are the destination points of our journey. Some days it looks like we have a long way to go.
And so it is important that we make sure we’re headed the right way! When you are on a journey you need to check the map. We do this every Sunday as we look into scripture. Worship is about celebration, but it is also about “course corrections” which we need to make. This summer in worship we are going to look at the basic texts which give directions for our pilgrimage and seek to make sure our personal and congregational priorities are where they need to be.
Just as you need to keep the maps in your car up to date, we need to keep our spiritual directions up to date. The basic map hasn’t changed, but its application changes every day, for we live in a world where the highways and byways are changing constantly. If we don’t have the Holy Spirit’s help in filling in the ancient map with new roads we’re going to be lost. This is true for me and you, and it is true for us (KBC).
Daniel Vestal has written a great little book called “It’s Time.” His basic premise is that at this time, it’s time for Christians and churches to be missional. To be missional is to live a life focused on our mission to imitate Christ. It is to subsume all goals and priorities to the one priority of being like Christ. In our current situation, this has some important implications for our church. We’ll be using the topics of Vestal’s book to help guide our study. I will be talking about fundamental issues. These are things which are at the heart of who we want to be: our urgent calling, our prayer life, being a missional congregation, following the great commission, doing justice and mercy, having hope for tomorrow. These are as fundamental to us as catching is to the Cardinals.
We are over a month away from the start of this emphasis, but you can begin praying now that God will shine a light our map and guide our journey for this new day.
Together in Christ…
Scott
This is not a problem we have at KBC. We are a welcoming church. But the problem of living up to our rhetoric is a problem at KBC. I don’t think it is worse for us than any other church, but the tension between the talk and the walk are always with us. We have some high ideals: living together in freedom… caring and reconciling… being the presence of Christ… These are the destination points of our journey. Some days it looks like we have a long way to go.
And so it is important that we make sure we’re headed the right way! When you are on a journey you need to check the map. We do this every Sunday as we look into scripture. Worship is about celebration, but it is also about “course corrections” which we need to make. This summer in worship we are going to look at the basic texts which give directions for our pilgrimage and seek to make sure our personal and congregational priorities are where they need to be.
Just as you need to keep the maps in your car up to date, we need to keep our spiritual directions up to date. The basic map hasn’t changed, but its application changes every day, for we live in a world where the highways and byways are changing constantly. If we don’t have the Holy Spirit’s help in filling in the ancient map with new roads we’re going to be lost. This is true for me and you, and it is true for us (KBC).
Daniel Vestal has written a great little book called “It’s Time.” His basic premise is that at this time, it’s time for Christians and churches to be missional. To be missional is to live a life focused on our mission to imitate Christ. It is to subsume all goals and priorities to the one priority of being like Christ. In our current situation, this has some important implications for our church. We’ll be using the topics of Vestal’s book to help guide our study. I will be talking about fundamental issues. These are things which are at the heart of who we want to be: our urgent calling, our prayer life, being a missional congregation, following the great commission, doing justice and mercy, having hope for tomorrow. These are as fundamental to us as catching is to the Cardinals.
We are over a month away from the start of this emphasis, but you can begin praying now that God will shine a light our map and guide our journey for this new day.
Together in Christ…
Scott