Follow Christ Together

Originally written for my church, Ypsilanti Free Methodist Church

There is going to be a day (or many days) when you are going to ask yourself why you even bother to be part of a church at all. It’s going to happen. No matter how mature the community of believers or how orthodox the theology, there are going to be moments when you’re just want to run off and head for a solitary cabin in the woods. It’s inevitable. It’s inevitable because every single person in your church is just like you, flawed, imperfect, and often unintentionally hurtful.

So even with all of our eccentricities and failings, why keep at it? Why continue to follow Christ together instead of on our own?

We were designed to GATHER together in community.

The short and definitive answer is that we were designed by God to meet together and experience Christ together. Based on their understanding of corporate worship and communal spiritual life in the nation of Israel, the earliest believers implicitly understood that gathering together was critical to their realized faith in Christ. So to it is for us.

In fact, the writers of the New Testament seemed to take involvement with a larger group of believers as a given and spent little time exhorting believers to be part of a church. What they do spend a considerable amount of ink on, is encouraging believers to live together in unity. The church is the first place that we demonstrate our love for each other. It is not enough to love in theory. The church is where we are able to love in practice and deed. The church is that opportunity.

We GROW best in the context of community.

Beyond being an outlet for the love we have been given in Christ, the church is our opportunity to be encouraged and encourage others to follow Christ more closely. Through experiences such as worship, preaching, discussions, and prayer (among many) we grow and are stirred towards obedience by the words AND witness of fellow believers. The church is not simply a location for believers of Jesus to congregate but rather an entity in which the Spirit of God ministers to the individual and the corporate.

We are sent to GO out in mission from a place of community.

In addition, the church serves as a jumping off point for ministry and missions; a place for believers to be equipped for ministry as we fulfill our individual and corporate command to go into the world and make disciples.

We follow Christ together because it is the way we were made. We follow Christ together because it is how we best grow. We follow Christ together because in doing so, we honor Christ by loving each other.

(white) Skin

Forgive

this (white) skin

this fickle frame.

Exorcise

this heart of leisure;

safe,

complacent,

confused,

willing but bankrupt of stimulus,

engaged but uninspired;

more apt to see the brush strokes of creation

in the stars’ advance across the washboard sky

than in my neighbor’s skin;

to feel the passing of the Lord

through the rippling field of wheat

but dismiss the thumbprint of the Creator

reflected back through fractured mirrors.

So I stare

down the barrel of an incomplete theology

with an inconsistent personality

dressed in the vestments of piety

concealing the filthy rags of impropriety.

Impassioned doctrine lacking application

is abortion of a stillborn faith.

A spirit self-identified as committed to life

bearing the fruit of ignorance,

impotence;

indifference;

of a calloused soul.

How many suffer

for fear of confrontation

as I seek ease

at the cost of a man’s emancipation?

In what hour will it be revealed

that the blood shed was shed for all?

All us weary sinners?

All us wounded saints?

When will my insatiable quest for justice

lead to the Spirit beating down

my own front doors?

When will delusions of holiness

be littered with the shards of my deception?

I am bound

to the sins of my own  privileged condition.

When my consistent

ethic of life ends

at the point of my own nose;

When the depth of my understanding

is bound

to a swifly vanishing tide pool of experience.

Vision worn thin

by vigorous omission.

Eyes gone dim

paralyzed by conviction

while apathy and ease

make short work of

atrophied ambition.

Stumbling

Struggling

Shambling steps

toward a future glory

through the streets of grime and

acrid aromas of our

sin-stained, grey-hued

day-to-day existence.

Come, Salvation,

come

meet us here

for tomorrow

for today.

Tune my heart to grieve;

my soul to hope;

my feet to march;

my lips to pray;

and tears to trace the lines

on this (white) skin.

Nebo Cabin

The interloper warmed his numb hands

before the warm gleaming of the stove.

Snow melting

pooling on the concrete floor

smelling of dust and pine.

The first cruel pangs

of sensation crept back

as he slowly massaged his hands

repetitiously.

The wind howled wickedly;

The ancient oaks

thrashed violently;

threateningly.

Night fell with icy resolution.

Specters encroached in the gloaming

of the forest

stark

bereft

abandoned.

The radiance wavered.

Elongated shadows waltzed

upon the floor

with sly foreboding.

Again the wind

whistled through leaky seals.

The chill bit

with callous indifference.

A somber acknowledgement grew

and the light fled further.

An Image

She looked down into the waters

deep

as clear as crystal---

shimmering,

and saw the clean, bleached trees

but not trees---

bones,

bones solemn and ancient

lurking like roots of the deep.

Fathoms below.

Far away.

Quiet and lonesome.

Monstrous, familiar.

Love Others

Originally written for my church Ypsilanti Free Methodist Church

Can we be honest for a moment?

Sometimes we have a people problem.

Oh, we like people--- sometimes, but we like them on our terms. At our most cynical we tolerate people for what they can do for us. Even at its most benign, our concern for others can be a tainted mixture of motivations. Our hesitation is not without cause though.

We live in a world in which war, terrorism, injustice, politics, and crime are inescapable. Even those we choose to love grieve us with offenses both trivial and heinous. If we love, it is a guarded love and in spite of ourselves.

The problem, for Christ-followers (and it is a big problem) is that Jesus, on multiple occasions explicitly ties together loving God and loving our neighbor. When asked about the greatest commandment He naturally answers, Love the Lord, but then problematically adds on “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Often, quite often, in fact, we operate as if our faith in Christ is independent of other people. Sometimes it is easier to love the Lord than it is other people. We know the trustworthy character of the Lord but people--- well, we know the track record they have going, and it’s not good.

For those who choose to follow after Christ though, the command to love others is inescapable. We aim to love not only those who deserve it but all we encounter. In loving our neighbors regardless of what they have or haven’t done, we model the way Christ loved us. He did not choose us when we were holy people with our lives perfectly arranged (we’re not even those people yet) but loved us while we were hopeless, wretched, and lost.

So we make it our aim to love through action our neighbors--- strangers and brothers alike, always acknowledging that it may be difficult, painful, and messy but also keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus who, quite inexplicably, loved us first.