The Gospel
May 27, 2009
“Our gospel is not the gospel unless it is good news to everyone.”
I think this statement has caused me to examine my faith more than anything else I’ve ever come up with or read. Very likely I stole it from someone smarter and wiser than me but it has sunk to such depths in my heart that it compels me to find people and places that challenge my gospel with their culture, condition, and personality. It leads me to ask questions like: Can my gospel be presented to the rich and the poor? Is it freedom for those oppressed by corporate America and those who will die of starvation today? Does it matter to the urban poor and the middle class? Is the language of my gospel accessible to an un-churched, Hispanic, junior high youth? Is it hope to the mentally handicapped?
I’m still not able to answer very many of those questions, but I’m trying. There are a few things I have figured out. The gospel we present must be simple and deep. It must be refreshing to the weary and freeing to the burdened. It must be the explanation and invitation into the gift of the crucified and risen Christ. We have to present it out of excitement rather than requirement, and if we aren’t excited about it then we need to re-engage the story through prayer and scripture until we burn once again. Those who hear our message should walk away knowing that they have heard a deep message of love from someone who cares for them about a God who cares even more. Conviction is a work of the Spirit, and I believe it comes when a soul is laid bare in front of incomprehensible grace. We proclaim that grace – the Spirit lays bare the soul.
My brothers and sisters, we are heralds of the good news. Sharing with others should be exhilarating rather than debilitating. It should be a natural outcome of a life abandoned to Christ. And calling disciples into Kingdom living should be a natural product of the church reaching out in love to places where only the Gospel can give hope. I say this mostly to invite you into my personal struggle to make the previous three sentences a reality in my life.
Born of the Spirit
February 3, 2009
“To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda or even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery: it means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.”
- Cardinal Suhard
C.S. Lewis on Christian Marriage (Frighteningly Relevant)
August 2, 2008
There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.
C.S. Lewis, 1943
Excerpt from Mere Christianity (Book 3, Section 6)
My kind of stupid!
May 27, 2008
“Rational optimism leads to stagnation: it is irrational optimism that leads to reform.“
G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy
Darkness and Light
March 4, 2008
“When we are confident of our identity in Christ we gain the integrity to be the same person in darkness and in light.”
Matt Naylor
The Reality and Uncontrollability of the Other.
March 4, 2008
” This experience of the reality and uncontrollability of the Other reaches its peak in the experience of Jesus as a person who cares for others and for the world. Every Christian shares in that reality to some extant, some consciously, most unconsciously. This experience of Jesus shows itself in an ability to live by one’s own convictions despite other people’s opposition to those convictions; in a breadth of empathy that transcends social and economic class; in a deepening trust of the Father of reality; in a willingness to engage in the war against evil and to stand for justice and mercy even when one must die small deaths in defense of them; and a willingness to die those deaths and leave resurrection to the Father. “
The Practice of Spiritual Direction, HarperSanFrancisco
