Old Men in Small Towns with Bad Breath

Can any of you relate to this? God has clearly called you to something and you’re just as clearly running from it. Maybe it’s stepping out and befriending a person in particular or maybe it’s larger than that and God wants you to serve in some capacity. This is normal for Christians so don’t feel like the odd one. For me, I know that God has called me to ministry/missions but it seems as though every opportunity I get I’m running from that. I’m often reminded of the story of Jonah, and how he ran from God’s calling. Jonah refused to go and preach to a people he saw as a lost cause. And so he ran. God chased him until eventually Jonah had no choice but to face what God was challenging him to do. As a result of his stubborn running Jonah endured some heartache along the way. I’m not saying that God’s going to use a whale swallowing you and you spending three days in the stomach of said whale to prove a point. But he will eventually force you to make a decision, and the hard lesson I still fail to learn is that in the grand scheme of things, God’s way is much better and contains less hurt and pain. So many times I've tried to justify running from him in my own way, often to the point of even denying the call that God placed on my own life. The truth is, how fortunate are we that God wants to use us? Whether it's volunteering to help out at the Edge or asking someone you barely know to coffee, it's amazing that God would even want to use us in any way. So, how can you relate to Jonah?

And They Had All Things In Common

Last weekend I found myself in an unexpected situation. I was visiting a friend, Jeremiah, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and he was in the process of finding a church. He goes to Eastern Michigan, and had found what he believed to be the church he'd heard about that many students went to. We pull into the parking lot, a few students mingling around, and start to head to the church. We were 9 minutes early, and like so many other services I've been to, people didn't actually show up until about 1 minute before the service started. I still can't fathom how people manage to time it so well.

We walk in and a woman greets us and lets us know we're early. "Only by 9 minutes, though" I say, and ask where we're supposed to be, as this is our first time here. She points down the hall and says the sanctuary is down there, so we go in and take a seat in the fourth row.

We're saying "Hi" to everyone we pass, and a few people come to us, somehow knowing we're new to the church (it was rather small, so this was no surprise), introducing themselves and finding out a little about us. Everyone is extremely friendly, but I'm having a very difficult time with names. In fact, it seems like everyone we've met is Chinese.

Then we're handed a program, and sure enough, it's a Chinese Lutheran church, with half the program being in Chinese. For a second I considered suggesting to Jeremiah we find a 11 o'clock service somewhere, feeling that we were imposing, both of us obviously not Chinese. That quickly went away with the realization that God had most certainly led us here, and I wanted to know what He was going to show us.

The service was amazing. The worship was amazing. There were some there who were singing in English, some in Chinese, all in unison with the hymnal having both languages to the same music. The people, especially the congregation, not only were acceptant, but embraced us. There also wasn't a politically correct atmosphere, as though people were trying to ignore the differences, pretend they weren't there. There was one moment where a person said something in Chinese and a translator standing up with him said, "Is there anyone new here today?" Jeremiah and I raised our hands, and there was some unashamed laughter, including from the people at the podium. It was remarkably comforting for me, and, I think, for Jeremiah. Yes, we were different, obviously so, yet it made no difference. We were brothers, and in Christ, no matter the differences in language, skin tone, nationality, or even culture, we had all things in common.

Acts 2 contains a remarkable statement in verse 44:

"And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common"

Shortly after Pentecost, there were people from "every nation under heaven"(Acts 2:5). Nations, cultures, not even language could pose a barrier for the church, for the Truth Christ gave us. Many of us have never experienced that. Our culture in the Western world seems to tell us we need to be separate, that the cultural differences of even our neighbors, because of nothing more than their skin color, are too great to be able to do things as one. Yet, as this verse shows, we, under the banner of the cross, all of us who believe can be together and have all things in common, not only material, but all things.

The Worship Corner - Spirit and Truth

The third definition of the word "corner" in Merriam-Webster's online dictionary is "a private, secret, or remote place" as in "a quiet corner of New England." I like that. I'm from New England, did you know that? (The accent comes out pretty strong when I'm super-excited or really mad about something.) About three weeks from now, there will be a spot on the Massachusetts turnpike as you're heading east where you will come around a corner, and you won't have even realized you were in the mountains until you see the view. There's a sheer drop on the far side of the guardrail, and all you'll be able to see beyond it are the glorious fall colors, and a few church steeples. It's breathtaking, and it feels like it goes on forever - both the view and the turn - and you'll be sorry when you're past it. You'll just want to stop and rest there for a minute, and soak it all in. (There is a spot to stop, but you'll need to know where to look for it.)

This is what I want our experience of worship to be. I don't always get a chance to say everything I'd like to about worship when I'm leading, but this is our chance to go a little deeper, and it is my hope that we will grow as a worshiping community as a result of these conversations. I want us to know how to stop and catch the view - to find that quiet, secret, and remote place where we can truly encounter God in a way that takes our breath away.

The Bible has a lot to say about worship. Check out this conversation between Jesus and a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. There's a lot we could say about this passage, but I want to focus on a few specific verses: John 4:23-24.

Jesus says to the woman: "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

I love how the Message puts it: "It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."

Those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship...

So here's our first discussion topic: How does this work itself out practically for you? What does it mean to come before God simply and honestly yourself?

In context, Jesus is answering the woman's question about place: she wants to know, where's the right place to worship? Essentially He tells her, "it doesn't matter nearly as much as you think it does. You can worship anywhere, anytime. It's your heart that matters."

John Wesley says in his comments on verse 24 that worshiping in spirit and truth means we bring everything into God's presence - "all our tempers, thoughts, words, and actions." (The word "tempers" here means emotions.) It means that no matter how we feel, or what we've done, we recognize that God is worthy of our worship, and we worship Him - with everything we've got.

So what does that look like?