Our area had the prettiest snowfall we've seen in a while yesterday. The downside was that I didn't get to sneak away for a little early season fishing along a stream somewhere. I watched the old cheesy movie, River of No Return with Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe this morning on AMC, so I got in a little bit of a river-fix, if vicariously.
My wife, Elaine, is just finishing a book that she says is the most impacting things she's read in years. It's a novel entitled The Shack, by William P. Young. It's about a man, Mack, who faces the worst kind of personal disaster. He then ends up in deep, intimate conversation with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Elaine says this book powerfully speaks to the need for the Body of Christ to be a passionate movement more than a controlled organization. Here's a section of The Shack that may speak to the things I've talked about in this blog. (The Holy Spirit is speaking to Mack.)
"Religion must use law to empower itself and to control the people it needs in order to survive. I give you and ability to respond and your response is to be free to love and serve in every situation, and therefore each moment is different and unique and wonderful. Because I am your ability to respond, I have to be present in you. If I simply give you a responsibility, I would not have to be with you at all. It would now be a task to perform, an obligation to be met, something to fail." (William P. Young. The Shack. Windblown Media, Los Angeles, 2007. Page 205.)
Even with the best of intentions, institutions come to the point at which they exist to maintain themselves and to survive, not necessarily to fulfill the mission which is the origin of their very existence. Institutional maintenance depends on rules and control. Movements depend on dynamic relationships, courage, and passion. I believe the hope for United Methodism or any church or denomination lies, ironically, in giving up the drive to perpetuate the institution. Our hope is to embrace the original mission of knowing and loving and serving the risen Jesus, and reaching a lost and hurting world, regardless of whether or not United Methodism survives.
Those are my thoughts as the melting snow feeds the streams of southern Missouri. Your thoughts? I'll see you around the next bend of the river.
Raking Leaves
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Fall is here. The sun is moving towards the edge of the frame where, in
just a few weeks it will hit the bumper rail and start back towards the
other side...
2 years ago
2 comments:
Pastor, thank you for sharing your faith in Christ with all of us.
Thank you for today's share. My thoughts: I feel when we stray from our primary purpose of living in and doing God's will, we enter into an institution of self-will run riot. Therein lies the problem... self-will, not God's will. God gave us free will and too many of us interpret that as MY will. There is a huge difference in beleiving in God and TRUSTING in God. Many believe, few trust. We rarely want to wait on God's will, we want to handle it ourselves. "Thanks God, but you're taking too long, I'll take it from here."
May we all grow in His will and abandon self-will.
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