Patrick at Tent Pegs writes today about the Elders’ vision of hat their church should be. Made me want to move back to Michigan. OK, not really but it’s a vision of what I’d like to see my church become. An excerpt:

These eleven men of God have traveled farther down a hard road than any group I have ever worked with before. When they saw that holding on to our traditions as if they were “thus saith the Lord” and keeping the church locked down in the building would not be effective in changing the world, they said, “enough.”
It is the eldership here that said we will put no more money into the ground. We built our building and remodeled it as fast as we could, but we are still having three morning services to get the folk in (and to serve different groups). Some have said we need to sell this building and build bigger, like those other megachurches in town. Our elders said no. They are willing to put money into off-site churches in coffee bars or empty storefronts, happy to pour money into mission works in Michigan, Canada, and six or seven countries overseas, and thrilled to maintain a massive warehouse of clothes and food that serves between 30-90 families a week (good stuff, not hominy and hand-me-downs). But no more money for church buildings. Why?
They want the church to escape the building. They want us to go out and bring in the lost. They want us to find those who are different from us, care for them, love them, and, should they wish to worship with us, welcome them. So… what was an upper-income white church is rapidly becoming something else. A large percentage of our congregation has no background in the restoration movement and some worship services have 30-35% minority representation now. The poor, the punks, and the pierced sit beside old ladies with blue rinsed hair, people who came down the hall from their AA or NA meetings and found a worship going on, black, white, asian, and an amazing assortment of financial situations and emotional histories.

Did you read that line in the last paragraph? It said and should they wish to worship with us! Not when, should. How refreshing to hear of a church focused on loving people, whether they want to place membership / study the Bible / be baptized / become “true disciples” or not.
Now I’m not saying that we’re still practicing the old way of the stat sheet, like some seem to be (at least in part). I’m just longing for a broader, deeper, more Christ like vision of a healthy church. It’s just that the shortsighted, “Are we growing? Are we baptizing?” vision of church health is all we know. It would be so easy to slide back into, I’m afraid we’re going to end up there.
I want something more than that.

I hear and read of things that people are working on in their lives or are praying for. I want to be more organized. I want to get my finances in order. I want to get into a house. Don’t get me wrong, those things have their importance and are meaningful, but I’ve been wondering how important they are to God in the His perspective from outside of time. He’s got the perfect vision, He can see the beginning and end of time at once. He knows how it all got stared and how it ends. He truly knows what’s important. Down here on Earth, with our limited vision of time, things can get cloudy. We get fooled by mirages and hallucinations. Which has lead me to this question:
If God had only two boxes to put everything of mine in, one marked ‘Important’ and one marked “Unimportant”, where would he put my stuff?
And, being boxes, they are limited in size. In other words, He can’t just keep putting everything in the “Important” box. Pretty soon it would get full, and he’d have to make decisions. “Hmm, I gotta take out the big screen or I can’t fit in salvation for his children.” Get the picture?
Yes, it’s a reductionist question, but I think we can learn from this simplification. It makes me think that some of the things we run after aren’t really that important to God. I’m not talking about just the material things. In fact, those are the things we can easily see God putting in the “Unimportant” box. No, I bet there are some Big Things on our lists that God looks at and says, “You know, from where I sit, looking at all eternity, that’s really no big deal.”
Good health? God says, “From up here, being sick for 30 years is a minute thing.” Financial security? “You know you only need to deal with that money for 75, 80 years. After that it’s useless.” A nice house? “You’re only going to live there for a few decades! After a thousand years, you won’t remember it, trust me.”
It’s the heart things, those things that shape us and define us that God might put into that “Important” box. A friendship that challenges you to grow? “Might be the difference in where you spend the next millenia.” An outward, others focus? “Might be the difference between where they spend eternity!” Learning to love like Jesus? “Might help My image, and maybe help others actually find their way home.”
It makes me think of this passage in a new light:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:25-33

This passage is usually used to teach us not to fret over stuff, which is important. In the light of the idea of God’s two boxes, I wonder if Jesus isn’t also, or even primarily, teaching us to put things in proper perspective – God’s perspective. Food, money, shelter, in the long run these things, though needed, are not important. Let God take care of those things, you turn your attention to the stuff in God’s “Important” box.

Maria and the oldest went to some home party together tonight, which left me and the younger two to fend for ourselves for dinner. I had to run to my sister’s too, so we hit the Golden Arches on the way home. We sat outside in the play area and after all the fries and nuggets were consumed they abandoned me for the play area.
There were a few other kids and parents there too. I was just enjoying a warm summer evening while the kids played when this little boy posed on the slide. Proud of himself, he called to his father, “Daddy! Look daddy! Daddy, LOOK!”
His dad looked over and nodded in appreciation and I was struck with that scene. The child hadn’t really done anything remarkable, just sat on the edge of the slide, somewhat precariously. But he thought it was cool, and he wanted his Dad to see what he could do. He wanted his Dad to acknowledge his accomplishment.
It made me think about our relationship with our father. We act this way too. We remember to share our faith, we have a good prayer time, we give some good advice or post something we think is profound and we pat our selves on the back. We may even say to God, in prayer, “Father! Look, father. Father, LOOK! I loved someone, I noticed them! I did something nice, I remembered. Look father!”
I’m not talking about the prideful moments we have, thinking were something we aren’t. I’m talking about the healthy pride, the sense of accomplishment. Last Sunday we had an outdoor service at a local park. It was a fair distance from the parking to the area we had service. All the teachers were bowing to take our communion around a picnic table. The prayer was being said and I noticed one of the older brothers making his way across the field, carrying a plastic chair to sit on. He was obviously laboring, so I left the table in the middle of the prayer to go help him out. I came back and took my communion and I had one of those moments. In the past I wouldn’t had left the prayer, that wasn’t right. I would have let him struggle across the field. But this time I was proud of myself for making this choice to help a brother out instead of legalisticly staying for the prayer. It was a better choice. “Look father! Look, I chose people over ceremony! LOOK!”
I like to think of God like the father of that boy at the McD’s, smiling politely. “That’s great, son.” But in his heart, he knows I’ve not really done anything great. He thinks, Son, that’s great, but it’s only start of what I have in mind for you. In the grand scheme of life, your choice, though noble, is so small. I came that you would make a life of such choices. One day you’ll understand.
As that boy grows, he won’t be so proud of those little things and he father won’t be as impressed with them either. You can’t imagine a 16 year old perched on a slide saying “Look, dad!” Dad would be disappointed if that’s what his son settled for. In some way I wonder, after 17 years of following Him, is God a little disappointed that I’m still proud of such little accomplishments? I wonder if He didn’t think I would be a little farther along this journey of becoming by now.

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so.

Hebrews 5:11-6:3