Messy Spirituality - 4

On p. 77 of Mike Yaconelli's book "Messy Spirituality", he wrote:

"I pastor the slowest growing church in America. We started twelve years ago with nintety members and have ungrown to thirty. We are about as far as you can get from a user-friendly church - not because our congregation is unfriendly but because our services are unpredictable, unpolished, and inconsistent. We are an 'odd friendly' church, attracting unique and different followers of Christ who make every service surprising."

I like that term "odd friendly."

He goes on to say on p. 78,

"Followers of Christ are odd. Oddness is important because it is the quality that addes color, texture, variety, beauty to the human condition. Christ doesn't make us the same. What he does is AFFIRM OUR DIFFERENCES."

(I imagine Jamie likes this one).

on p. 81 he says:

In the book of Matthew (10:5-12), Jesus warns what happens when you decide to be his disciple. His description of discipleship is virutally a manual of unbalance. Discipleship creates tension in families, can bring about financial ruin or destroy reputations. It sometimes makes enemies instead of friends, nomads instead of stable citizens. Jesus warned that the witness of our faith would create the perception that we are unbalanced, unstable, scary people to be around. (later he says)... faith is the unbalancing force in our lives that is the fruit of God's disturbing presence.

He then gives an example of how this oddness played out in his church (p.81):

One Sunday morning in our church, the pastor (that would be me) and the communion coordinator forgot that it was communion Sunday. During the middle of my sermon, the woman responsible for the communion table remembered. She looked at me and panicked, looked around the room, trying to think of what to do, then stood up, left the meeting room, and disappeared into the kitchen. A few minutes later, she reappeared with the wine and the bread, set up the table in front of me (I was still trying to preach), and sat down. I finished the sermon, finally, and moved into the communion service. I began with the words about the breaking of the bread: "On the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread..." I reached down and uncovered the bread, and there in plain view was our communion loaf... HOT DOG BUNS!

The woman in charge of communion was not afraid to admit she had forgotten communion, she was not concerned about disrupting the service, and mostly, she did not want to put communion off another week. She loves communion, so she improvised from the meager stock in the kitchen. Her love for Christ drove her to risk being thought of as disruptive so we could celebrate what our church is REALLY about - the body and blood of Jesus. Of course, she also gave us the most unusual communion service we've ever experienced and a memory none of us will ever forget, which is what happens when we allow people to express their uniqueness. Warm memories and godly surprises abound.

Yeah. That's what I was trying to get across with my sermon yesterday - about Peter walking on the water - the fact that we need to have more failures in church. Meaning, we need to have more people willing to take risks, doing and being what the church is REALLY supposed to be doing and being. Anyway... I like that story about communion hot dogs.

Peace, friends. Revolution(ate).