End of Summer Notes

This summer I began to accept the full ramifications of being an exile, whose allegiance is to another kingdom, and for whom this world's kingdoms are strange, strange in every direction.

This summer I began to realize that the kingdom of heaven that Jesus spoke of is not best represented in this world by prosperous and "successful" churches, but by a network of exiles who have in common a few simple things: their kingdom is not of this world, and Jesus the Galilean teacher who was executed on a Roman torture device two thousand years ago is their risen and reigning king.

That's crazy.

I learned this summer that if you try to forget everything you've ever learned bout what church is and should be, and then with your mind washed clean of all that cultural baggage you try to gather up the mostly quite enigmatic hints as to what the church should be from the New Testament, you'll be profoundly embarrassed at what we have done with what we were given.

This is not an anti-church tirade, but it shouldn't be surprising to anyone that many many people are wondering these things lately.

This summer I began to act upon and test a simple thought experiment. The church is a network of believers, strangers in a strange land, wearing their absurd foreign garments (that seem so terribly uncomfortable to those not wearing them--Col 3:12-17) to restaurants and schools and workplaces.

So this summer my goal became to get with my fellow citizens of a far kingdom at every opportunity, in various ways and places, to do various things, but all in the name of Jesus, our king. It has nothing particularly to do with Sunday morning. And when it is exclusively channeled into Sunday mornings, it becomes an absurdity.