I want to write a bunch...I'm just home from two fantastic mission trips with the good kids from NUMC. God moved and we were amazed, but more about that later.
A couple months ago I wrote a post about Panera bread and church. Yesterday, my aunt, who I love dearly left me a comment that ripped me up. She noted that many people who go to Panera or who spend Sunday mornings sitting on their porches know what they're missing, but they also know that they won't find it in a church. She stopped me in my tracks and made me realize again that we're not offering God in a way that transforms people. On top of that, I've been reading in Mark...this morning I was reading through Mark 5 where Jesus starts to drive out demons and heal women and raise people from the dead. Jesus is full of power and I believe that Jesus offers that same power today. Unfortunately, for some reason we think that we need to dress Jesus up in such a way that he becomes acceptable or pertinent to the people around us instead of just allowing the work of Jesus and the power of Jesus to stand by itself. We become so fake in our relationships with others and we become so power hungry in our relationship with the church that we limit the power of Jesus to transform lives in a powerful way. That's not the way that we should be at work. Jesus will heal our brokenness, transform our hurts, drive out our demons and renew us if we'd only let him. Churches need to get back to Jesus-centered programming rather than us-centered programming that we think might work, because frankly, it's not about us.
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