Going to the Good Doctor

This week I have been thinking a great deal about Jesus and his love for those who are sick and in need of a doctor. Primarily my thoughts have centered on learning to confess that I am one of Jesus’ patients.

In Luke chapter 5, we get a good picture of Jesus’ purpose statement as he tells the Pharisees, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” In the 20’s class we talked about how this statement of Jesus challenges our notions of evangelism today. We often speak of evangelism as something we do to others – they need to repent, to believe, to find freedom. Yet, my thinking has been transformed to see that the primary act of evangelism is our confession, not someone else’s.

Isn’t it we who have repented, believed and found freedom? If so, why do we find it so terribly difficult to let others in on these wonderful acts of grace in our lives? These intimate acts of grace applied specifically to us form the essence of our evangelistic speech. The word testimony comes from the legal system that requires us to speak only of what we know and have experienced in a personal way. Yet, when we talk to others about God, we are quickly tempted to depersonalize our experience of grace into theological truths that others must believe.

Therefore, I am trying to learn to be one of Jesus’ patients again. I want to speak well of what I know about Jesus’ healing touch. I want to cultivate a confession of need for Jesus, and I want my evangelism to start from a confession of an intimate understanding of his work in my own life. Pray with me that our community would identify with Jesus’ mission so that we would be willing confessors of his work in our lives.

Connecting with Creation

Enjoy the beauty of God’s creation today. Whatever you are doing right now, find a way to get outside for a moment and breath in the fall air. Offer to take out the trash, run an errand, or wash your boss’ car. Whatever you have to do, do it! It has to be one of the 10 best days of the year!

Further Reflection on the Young Adult Retreat

This year’s retreat has continued to stir my mind concerning community. Craig Heilmann, a PHD student at Duke Divinity, challenged us to consider our prayers, scripture reading and community from a different perspective. I want to highlight his thoughts on becoming a confession as a way to being in community with each other.

One of the temptations I face is to live my life as a series of private affairs. No one really has to know what is going on in my life, nor does any of my decision-making have to connect with anyone. When I live this way, I end up settling for a place of isolation where my secrets are kept and nobody else can get in. This is not a good place to start building community.

Confession on the other hand, drives me to a place of community. Confession draws me out of my false self as only deliverer of the gospel without needing to hear it for myself. Confession gives voice to the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ in my own life – that I am forgiven for my sins! This physical hearing of the good news from a friend solidifies my faith and reforms my need for community in a healthy way.

Pray with me that we would become a confessional community. Not one that airs our dirty laundry as a means of catharsis, but an authentic community that longs for the touch of Jesus in our lives which authenticates and personalizes our witness of hope to the world.

The Freedom of "No"

We live in a hyper-busy culture don’t we? I feel the busyness creep into my soul every morning when I wake up. The temptation is to think that I can somehow master the expectations of others and those I have for myself; however, it never seems to work. The end of the day has a similar routine. I usually feel the disappointment creep into my soul when I think about all of the things that I didn’t get done that I should have gotten around to doing. All of this busyness seems to squeeze out any real time to spend listening to God. It turns my prayer life and Bible ready from worship (God shaping me into his image) to idolatry (me shaping God into my image).

One way to stop the madness is to have a change of pace. I want to encourage you to consider saying, “No,” to your regular to do lists in order to say, “Yes,” to listening to God. The word “No” can actually be a freedom word. Instead of thinking that we can accomplish all things in order to prop up our ego, I encourage you to think about saying, “No,” to something so that you will have the time and space to hear God’s words again in your life.

Good Community Through Conflict

Community is difficult isn’t it? This week, I have had many hard conversations with various people. Maybe you have had a similar week. Despite our best intentions, somehow things we think get jumbled up inside. When they finally find their way outside of us, our words and actions can be misunderstood or at worst hurtful to those whom we are desperate to communicate. Maybe you have also had the experience coming from the other way. Maybe your friends, co-workers, and family have been trying to communicate with you but somehow they have hurt you.

The temptation is to give up on the process. When we can’t find a solution, we don’t want to make things worse, and we certainly don’t want to continue to set ourselves up to be hurt by others. It is in this temptation that we can choose to walk away from relationships. To give in to this temptation is to move of self-preservation. Yet, I have recently seen through the temptation to see an opportunity.

Simply put, the opportunity is to become like Jesus in loving others. The gospels tell us story after story of people who were trying to entrap Jesus or worse they were trying to kill him over what he said and did. Yet, somehow he continued to welcome their invitations to dinner parties specifically designed to label him a fraud and blasphemer. Even his best friends didn’t get Jesus. Yet Jesus still invited them to share a meal with him during his final days.

Jesus’ persevering, pursuant love has reawakened my imagination to a new way of doing community. Pray with me that we might be the type of community that doesn’t walk away from each other, but welcomes Christ’s example to pursue people even if it takes a while to be understood.

Alpha Basically

This week I attended the first Alpha Course meeting. Overall, it went very well. I had a good time meeting new people over dinner, but it was the conversation after the talk that really surprised me.

We all shared a bit about our lives and what we were hoping to learn through Alpha. Everyone at my table was willing to be vulnerable. They shared about their faith tradition and how it influenced their understanding of Jesus. I was surprised to find out how easy it was to talk about Jesus in this context. Some shared that they didn’t know much about Jesus in the first place, while others shared more painful experiences about their introduction to Jesus years ago through their church and family.

In talking with some of the young adults who attended the first meeting, it was easy to see that God is up to something with this ministry. Pray with us that God would use Alpha to draw people to himself.

Your Redemption is Near

Today, I had the pleasure of attending Anne Williams at the closing of her home with her attorney. It was great to walk with her through that experience of becoming a homeowner. Having a seat at the table and listening to the commitment of the Habitat team to continue to work with her if she had any trouble paying the bills in the future or any problems with the house. It was an amazing act of grace on their part, and I was thankful to see it first hand.

Overall, Habitat’s ministry at 112 N. Maple St encourages me. They took an abandoned building that housed illicit drug use, prostitution and theft, and had the vision to turn it into a home for the Williams family. As I dropped Anne off to her new home, the picture of redemption that her house represents touched me. The Kingdom is indeed coming on earth, and the CHBC got to participate in it.

When Anne signed her first of many papers at the closing, she said the only thing appropriate for such an event, “Thank you, Jesus.”

Jesus, I thank you for allowing us to partner with you in this grand act of redemption.