A Shared Participation

For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. " - 1st Corinthians 10:17

This weeks' Church offertory lead to an epiphany - making that 15" journey from head to heart!

Our choir director gave the men and women in the sanctuary different words to sing, like a round. The men sang their part then the women sang theirs then both sang their different parts together and it was wonderful!

It wasn't a show I watched but an event - and I was part of it, reminded Church is not a show to watch but a participation to share!

The realization went further!

Why the liturgy with its printed prayers, times of sitting, rising, kneeling, eating, singing songs we can actually sing? - not for a love of ritual but because Church is not a show to watch but a participation to share. We may detour throughout the service, each having our own part as the Holy Spirit leads, but then we return and continue together.

I participate in a shared fellowship - I sing, I pray, I kneel, I eat, I make the sign of the cross - participating with my body as well as my soul and spirit. There is a place for the "I" in the voluntarily participation with the "We"! I belong.

There is a reason the Eucharist is also called "Communion" - we commune with Jesus and his body, a shared participation.

- fritz

Discipleship - Like a Salt Water Fish

I want you to imagine a saltwater fish. The fish can only survive in his natural habitat, which is the ocean. Why? Because the ocean surrounds the fish with everything it needs to live, breathe, and have its being.

The fish is also a dependent creature. Fish swim in schools.

Now consider a different image. Imagine that this fish is removed from the ocean and from its school and is thrown in someone’s backyard. People take turns spraying the fish with a water hose every 15 minutes. They also sprinkle salt on its body.

That’s an apt picture of modern discipleship.

Discipleship has been separated from the Christian’s native habitat (ekklesia) and it’s become a highly individualistic event. An individual discipler “disciples” an individual disciplee to become a better individual disciple.

And we have not so learned Jesus Christ.

Christianity has and always will be a collective, corporate life and pursuit.

The issue, therefore, is not discipleship. The issue is restoring the ekklesia as God intended it to be, for the ekklesia is the Christian’s native habitat. And out of it flows everything else.

- Frank Viola, Reimaging the Church, 7/26/2009
Read the whole article here.

- fritz

"Practice Makes Perfect"

"For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; .. the word of knowledge ... faith ... gifts of healing ... the working of miracles ... prophecy ... discerning of spirits ... divers kinds of tongues ... the interpretation of tongues.

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. - 1st Corinthians 12:8-12

The Apostle Paul draws the analogy of the differing gifts of the Holy Spirit as being like different body parts and, indeed, we are different parts of Christ's body, the way he functions in the earth today.

Just as we could hardly expect a person to be a good ball player without practice, we can't honestly expect the body parts of Christ to function together without "practice", either.

This is where churches find their fulfillment. The local church must be willing to provide a safe place to "practice" without fear of rejection, otherwise it is just taking up space. As we practice we get it wrong sometimes, this is to be expected and should be allowed; a good pastor will help by coaching and encouraging. The more we practice the better we get.

Churches are not the body of Christ, believers are. Churches are to be the safe place believers practice and exercise so they become really good at it on the field.

- fritz

The Great Equalizer

People in suits and others in blue jeans, black people, white people, some rich, some poor, some well groomed and others not - all moving forward in line, together, kneeling at the altar, taking communion, arising to sing, pray, praise, and receive the benediction.

The formal service over, it's out to the foyer to visit, have a hug, enjoy over a cup of coffee (maybe a donut), but eye-to-eye contact, interaction, caring.

Jesus is the great equalizer.

This must have been part of what the apostle, Paul, meant when he pinned the words,

"Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ ... " - Colossians 3:9-11 (MESSAGE)

Abraham's Blessing - A New Nation

"Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house ... and I will make of thee a great nation ..." - Genesis 12:1-3

My affiliation with Christ enables me to participate in "Abraham's Blessing".¹

Part of that blessing is nation building - not a political nation, but a common bond of heart and soul that will culminate upon Christ's return to rule this earth.

Jesus told his disciples, "I will build my church".² The word, "Church" literally means "the called out ones." Called out of every nation and ethnic group are individuals who are to be part of his work in the earth. The call is generic in that anyone can participate if they desire to do so. It is specific in that only the ones tapped by God will say, "Yes!" Do you feel that draw to participate? It's him calling.

These are, collectively, the "Mountain that filled the whole earth" mentioned in the Bible's book of Daniel, chapter two.³ They are the temple of God building for his habitation.⁴ They are the "joints and ligaments" of the Body of Christ, helping it to grow into full maturity.⁵

Entering Christ has made me part of something bigger than myself, bigger than my nation, bigger than my time in history.

How cool is that!

-fritz

^{1 - Galatians 3:13
2 - Matthew 16:18
3 - Daniel 2:34
4 - Ephesians 2:22
5 - Ephesians 4:16}

Go to Church!

When [Jesus] came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath. - Luke 4:16a

When Sabbath rolled around Jesus went to "church" - he made a habit of it. He didn't always agree with them but he attended, he spoke the truth in love, helped those he could, and if they threw him out of one he went to another.

He never quit.

There's a story of an old man who faithfully attended church every Sunday though he had long ago lost his hearing. When asked why he answered, "I still want God to know who's side I'm on!"

Go to church, and make it a habit. That's what Jesus did.

- fritz

Losing something important

"God's household ... is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth." - 1st Timothy 3:15

Anglican headlines were recently made by a visiting priest serving the Eucharist¹ to an attender's dog.

The news article reads:

After the action became public last week, Rea apologized during her Sunday sermon to anyone who may have been hurt or embarrassed by her actions. She explained the initial gesture as a way of welcoming a stranger.

[The dog's owner], who had never been in the church before, thought the action was “very innocent.”

"And the joy and happiness on the face of one old lady in the front row made it all worthwhile," he told the Toronto Star. ²

What troubles me is not the event but the explanation with its underlying perspective of both leaders and laity concerning the purpose of the church.

When church services are viewed as mere social events to be as inclusive as possible and a smile being the determining factor of what is worthwhile, we have lost something important - a Christ centered focus that make our corporate gatherings worthwhile.

Maybe that's the real reason church attendance is declining.

-fritz


1 - Eucharist: A church ritual believed by most Christians to represent, either symbolically or actually, the members' partaking in the life of Christ.

2 - California Catholic Daily, July 31, 2010

Put down the cell phone and talk!

"Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching." - Hebrews 10:25 (NIV)¹

Perhaps a strange quote combination, Garrison Keillor and Hebrews, but there is a correlation here.

too many young American men suffer from a desperate lack of social skills ... just the simple art of extending yourself in a friendly manner to someone you don't know, which is crucial in any job in which you brush up against the great unwashed public. (Or in politics, or spreading the gospel, or simply living a rich life in multivarious America.) Over and over and over, you run into young men with the personalities of warehouse security guards.²

Garrison blames our electronics, cell phones, e-mail, text messaging, etc. Here's his advice:

We can talk L8R about bad spelling and whassup with the acronyms — my concern is that electronics, which seem to open up new vistas in the world, may be shutting us down. Put down that cell phone, good sir, and look me in the eye and tell me something. How are you? Good. I like those tattoos. And the big safety pin in your ear. You from here? No? You're from Oklahoma? Really? Where the waving wheat can sure smell sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain? Cool. Awesome. Totally.²

Life is more than information exchange. Social skills are developed ONLY through personal interaction.

Almost like it was planned that way, real Church fellowship gives believers a future spiritual and social advantage; don't neglect it!

- fritz

^{1 - Hebrews 10:25 (NIV)
2 - The Silent Brotherhood, Prairie Home Companion, April 20, 2010}