(posted April 7, 2008) Rounding out a three week talk on "the kingdom" Pastor Dion talks about what it means to be a "kingdom church." Find out what makes a church worthy of the adjectival use of the word "kingdom" and what makes others nothing special. A special announcement is also going to be made of historic proportions. You surely don't want to miss history making, episode 17 of The Six!
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Elephants
You asked....so I will answer...
I'm really liking the Elephants in the Room series. I'll admit that I was a little curious about Pastor Paul's message on Sunday, mostly about how his topic was an "elephant" at all, at least in my understanding of the phrase, but by the end, I think I was there, and I definitely agree.
By the way, a bunch of us thought it would have been really great to suspend a giant inflatable elephant in the Santuary for this series. And for the first week of the series you could all pretend that it wasn't there, and act surprised when people pointed it out to you.
Anyways, nice topic this week. Sadly enough, I haven't found yet found my way of helping to make St. Matthew a Kingdom Church yet, but it is regularly on my mind.
Also, I REALLY liked that analogy from the woman at the International Easter Celebration.
"Most churches live too close to Heaven, when they should really be living right at the gates of Hell."
It says a lot about how the church views ministry and life in general. It also reminds me of a book by Craig Gross called The Gutter. It talks about how God sent Jesus, His perfection, to the worst places imaginable to save those He found there, and how we, the church, should be imitating that by going to the Gutter. It also talks about why we don't go there, mainly because we're afraid of it. Maybe not because it's so scary...but because it's what we ourselves were saved from, and we're terrified of what going back there would mean.
My passion has been youth ministry for a long time, and I've longed to be able to get into local high schools and work with the teens THERE. Maybe host a Bible study or a discussion group, something like the Exploring Faith Questions class. Maybe volunteer at events or get trained and offer services as a counselor, etc. Who knows? The idea of it sounds terrifying to me...which really leads me to believe that it's exactly what God wants me to do.
Amen.
Man, you 'brought it' on this episode. Amen to striving to be a Kingdom Church.