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A recipe for healing broken people and church
Thought of the day:
Last night I finally started writing a book. It’s an odd thing, since I don’t see myself as a wise sage, or a wildly successful pastor. Just a plain ordinary, slightly crazy pastor who believes that God puts churches in places to bring healing to the broken in that community. And the only time a church should “close” is when all the broken in the community are healed and are perfect. In other words, the need doesn’t happen until Jesus returns.
Of course the statisticians will tell you that there are life cycles to church – usually a 40-50 cycle where around 20-25 the church starts slowly dying, or at least losing its significance. I know a few that fit that model, and I know a few that have been around 10o or 200 years, or more. Go to Eurpose – there are some there that have been in use for 1000 plus years – and in India, 1800. So while the stats guys have noticed a phenomena – it ain’t necessarily a law/ My book will be about keeping the church in the business of healing, in the business of salvaging people, and their relationships. There is hope for such churches, and for those who attend them, and for the community that surrounds them.
The hope is found in soup – specifically “stone soup” and focuses heavily on the sacraments, and on Eph 2:8-10 – especially 10:
“2:10 We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has already designated to make up our way of life. Ephesians 2:10 (NJB)
As a lutheran – we focus a lot on 8 and 9 – and for good reason. But if there is a answer, if there is a way to stop churches from closing, it is in realizing that we are God’s art work, His poetry, and there is much work to be done as we heal from the damage of sin, and the work, the poetry God has called our lives, because He called us, is key in that process of healing, together.
I’ve seen it happen, in churches in the desert – in a church in the suburbs. This isn’t some how to get er done book, with methodologies to implement. It’s a radical way to see the church return to faithfulness, one ingredient at a time. The recipe is a parable, and realizing the truth in it. A truth best described in Eph 2:8=10
So pray for me. as I write a parable about healing broken lives and broken churches, simply with sacred simple things, water, a Stone, and some bread.
Thanks!
oh and realize, that this book is about all of us… for there is hope for all – no matter how broken, how burdened, how alone.. as we heal together in Christ!
Broken People Healing in Christ..one step
Thought of the day….
Earlier this week, my devotional/discussion thgouth included the mission statement of my church. “where broken people find healing in Christ, while helping others heal”
It had more hits than any other devotional blog I have written, and some pretty nice comments came to me. (By the way – feel free to comment and discuss what I right about here). It made me think about the need to discuss what it means to be broken, and what it means to be healed, and how this happens when we find ourselves gathered with others in God’s presence….
The first step is a challenge in our society is difficult – it is not only admitting we are broken people, but mourning and being mortified that we are. Isaiah demonstrated this sorrow and pain this way…
6:5 Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.”
Isaiah 6:5 (NLT)
Have you ever, when someone asks you “How is it going”, really wanted to be honest. To let them know that your heartbroken, or anxious about finances, or challenged, and cannot find any reason for hope? That you are struggling with depression, or worried about what you might hear at that next doctor’s visit? That you don’t know how to deal with the issues your kids misbehavior, but it scares you none the less? But of course you say, “It’s going fine!”
Or what about us as a people, do we take great pride in our country, and pretend that everything is okay? That families are being ripped apart, that children are growing up without any sense of ethics or morality? Do we grieve about a country that is so calloused by sin that we don’t notice that most television shows include adultery as the norm? Do we realize how many people live in great need? Do we realize we are more concerned about having to pay for abortions, than the fact that 50 million lives have been tossed away?
The first step? It’s not admitting we are broken people living in a broken world.
It is realizing it.
And realizing – that no matter how much we try…. we can’t fix what is wrong…
We can’t do miracles on that magnitude. There is only One who can… the One who created us, and can re-create us. We can trust Him, depend on Him, know that He will fix, heal, repair and make it all new.
For that is why he came…even as He explain in his first sermon – as He quotes Isaiah,
4:18 “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; 19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” 20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Luke 4:18-21 (NKJV)
As your heart cries out, about your own brokenness, or the brokenness of this world, my you realize that for you as well… today this scripture has been fulfilled… as Christ heals your brokenness, and mine, and the worlds….
The Broken: Repair or Replace?
Discussion/Devotional thought of the day:
Last week I was at a convention of my district. As things progressed, as people were elected and resolutions considered, debated, passed or passed by, it hit me.
We live as a “reactionary” church.
Most of the resolutions seem to either try to correct past resolutions of past conventions, or strengthen that which was decided, and proven to be too week to be effective. Rather than deal with past errors – we keep treating the symptoms, rather than the cause. Examples abound, as we struggle with the vocations of laity and the pastoral office, as we struggle with having a governance which is basically a representative democracy, and how that works in a manner where those elected have pastoral/ecclesial responsibility over those who elect them.
So we try to fix what’s wrong, we elect people who we think are wise, or at least persuasive, or who we know someone who knows their pastor…and we make our judgments that way. We take that which is broken, and try to bend it back, use duct tape, whatever will allow it to function – even if it functions barely…. and we become satisfied for another three years, and pride ourselves on getting it done.
It is reminiscent of our spiritual lives as individuals, and as the church at large. Rather than deal with issues, we deal with the repercussions they cause. An example – the debate over abortion and insurance. We fight (or at least gripe about) the legislation, and battle those who pass it. What if the majority of our time and money was expressed in the teaching of God’s love, and explaining how God created us to live? If we worked for actually brining the means of grace to broken lives, which doesn’t just “cover up” the cause of things, but recreates them anew in Christ?
What if people understood what it meant to be baptized, and began to cherish that which they had been given?
What if we grasped verses like this….
5:17 So for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old order is gone and a new being is there to see.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NJB)
What if we understood that God doesn’t just repair us, but has made us new?
We pray, “Lord, have mercy!” Now go, and live this day, confident in that mercy that just doesn’t repair the consequences, but completely renews our hearts and our minds.
AMEN
