newsletter for November

I sent this out to a few trusted souls for comment and got from tears to you really need an editor for the grammar and presentation. Read on WaynO
As I talk about being missional and understand it is a lifestyle I often wonder what everyone else is thinking about it. If there is truly some change taking place in the lives of those who read what I write and those who hear what I preach and those who study the Bible with me? I wonder if I even get the whole thing at times but it is such a burden I carry that I have no choice but to try and share with others this strange life commitment and way of living.
At times I want to give up on this whole thing and just go back to living a comfortable and less stressed life. Then I get to be a chaplain to someone who is a hospice patient and to minister to their family. I get a chance to reach out to a young person and help with some struggle they are having. There is the life changing event of losing ones freedom by moving into an apartment or skilled nursing facility. Maybe it is a child moving out of the house or one seemingly going the wrong way down the highway of life. There is always a place in someones life I get to move in and be part of that life and hopefully be a positive and supportive presence.
Or maybe I get all that and then read something like this. It is this that most of us are searching for and don’t find for a plethora of reasons. Some reasons we understand and some we never quite get a handle on. Some of us find this and others will struggle through life trying to get here. The article here from the blog “Kingdom Grace” which I read regularly.

Communities of Transformation (October 16, 2008)
I wonder if this is possible.
Our communities are filled with people desperate to unburden themselves in the presence of another, to be known at a level where the only antidote to disdain is grace, to sink beneath death’s dark waters while in the grip of a set of strong hands that promise to raise them up into newness of life.
If we have no one we really trust, no one we can talk through our failures with then we are truly alone. It doesn’t matter what level of commitment we have to a group or organization.
One of the reasons why so many people find their way out of conventional churches is that they are lonely and disconnected in a sea of activity. For a long time they believed that sitting and listening was participating in community. They believed that being in a small group was being supported and loved. They come to sense a huge disconnect.
The heart of ministry is to be Jesus to one another. Too often we overload ourselves with activities that have value but have so captured our attention that they insulate us from each other. We avoid the heart of ministry because it is too hard.
We can’t flee from commitment to each other, we must give grace when we are harmed, and we must love when it is inconvenient. Becoming like Jesus is a sacrifice that most of us are unwilling to make and that is why we lack so much.
(The Heart of Ministry - Leighton Tebay)

Then I went to the blog Grace picked some of this from and found a deeper sense of what church is all about. It is from “Abductive Columns” another blog about why the church is falling apart. Following is an excerpt from it.

One Snapshot in Grace
We must ask why so few are willingly die to themselves in community. Why we so rarely journey from self-dependence through the valley of death to life in the Spirit in the presence of a connecting guide? Where are the spiritual leaders, the elders of God’s people? Where are the spiritual leaders, the shepherds of the flock? Where are the people who can listen well and guide us through our problems to the Father’s heart and regard it as their calling to do so? Whatever became of the idea that all believers are priest?
Our communities are filled with people desperate to unburden themselves in the presence of another, to be known at a level where the only antidote to disdain is grace, to sink beneath death’s dark waters while in the grip of a set of strong hands that promise to raise them up into newness of life.
In recent conversations, I’ve asked a number of Christ-followers if they had someone in their lives whose strength and wisdom encouraged them to make themselves fully known. Every last one of them answered the same way: “I’d give my right arm to have someone like that in my life. There’s so much going on inside me that I’d love to share, not to find answers necessarily but just so someone knew. But I have no one like that.” (FPeatross)

I apologize for the length of this letter but it is something we need to deeply consider and make some life change in regard to. There is a song I think was sung by the Gatlin Brothers that said something about “looking for companionship but it just gets in the way” and often it is this that keeps us from sharing in the lives of others or others sharing in our lives.
As it is in the blogs, a very costly thing this giving up our lives to gain them. Letting someone in so close to our hearts that we can feel their heart beating with ours. Dropping the curtain of protection and reaching out without judgment but in love and concern and holding that other being close enough that we feel the heart beating. It is a two way street and that is what being one in the body of Christ is all about. Being one means we feel each others pain and joy, we dance together as we move through life holding each other up. We don’t get to pick and choose who it is we walk with, it as if God puts together those who need each other even when we would not choose to be close to the other.
This is a move on a personal level that will ultimately take us to a place beyond any we ever imagined and will offer a chance for change in the entire “Body of Christ.” Consider this an invitation to participate, an invitation to take a chance on a new life. If you are a real believer in Jesus Christ you are called to become a “new person” filled with the Holy Spirit, and on a journey into the “Kingdom of God.” I will be here waiting and watching to walk this journey with all of you.
Grace and Peace, Pastor Wayne