Nothing like a great day, great visit with a friend, and a great dog

Last week I went to go see my friend and all her kids. My boys just love them. She loaned me a great book by Larry Crabb (and no he doesn't seem crabby). It's called The Safest Place on Earth. It has really challenged and helped me as I process some internal issues I have. The heart of his book can be explained best as understanding that in many churches people are having surface only communication. We are not really going beyond that. He goes on to say that we as Christians are actually quite good at it.

     "... we've found ways to 'do church,' even to participate in small groups that don't require real connecting, ways to involve ourselves with fellow Christians without fully turning our chairs. We've walked well-traveled roads, broad highways involving activity, organization, and ambition (both secular and religious), and built church buildings along the way. We've welcomed into our buildings the throngs of travelers who walk those roads with us and herded them into audiences we call communities.

     Churches are rarely communities. More often they are social machines that run smoothly for a while, break down, then are fixed so they run smoothly again or noisily chug along as best they can. The invitation to greet pew mates during the early part of the worship service typically leads nowhere. It's often nothing more than a squirt of oil on the gears. You could state your name was Bob or Howard or Rita or Sue and it would make no difference. Those kinds of interactions rarely create community- they more often substitute for it.

     The path of the Spirit is so very different. It's narrower, steeper, and straighter than any other. It's a path traveled only by worshippers who celebrate their dependence on God and each other by turning their chairs toward a small community of friends and sticking with them, and who find the power of God's Spirit to make that community work. They know the God gives them His Spirit and works miracles both in them and among them, not because they cleverly make it happen, but because they revel in the dependence and learn to hear the Spirit's voice (see Gal 3:5)"

Wow! I just needed to hear someone else say what I felt the Spirit was quietly saying. I just don't know how we can have that experience in a large setting. Our church was really little when I first started going. We talked about keeping things small and having sister churches sprout out of it. They eventually disregarded that plan. Now we have a large congregation and little community. I can understand how the churches in China grow. Something happens in the small gatherings that I feel we are missing out on.

     "When we turn our chairs to face each other, the first thing we see is a terrible fact: We're all struggling. Beneath the surface of every personality - even the one that seems most 'together'- a spiritual battle is raging that will only be won with the help of the community."

     "Many voices in the church, perhaps most of them, speak to that desire: Here's what to do, here's the seminar to attend, here's the counselor to see, here are the principles to follow, here are the rules to keep, here are the biblical promises to claim. Only a few voices direct us to worship, or call us to a new level of trust. Only a few invite us to experience spiritual conversations in a spiritual community.

     Yet you can hear your own heart crying, 'It's the Lord I want. In the Lord I take refuge. I don't want to run to a mountain of relief. Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I, higher than all my troubles, that lifts me into the presence of God. Everything else is secondary!

     That cry from your heart is your longing to be part of a true church, to participate in spiritual community, to engage in spiritual conversations of worship with God and of co-journeying with others. You yearn for a safe place, a community of friends who are hungry for God, who know what it means to sense the Spirit moving within them as they speak with you. You long for brothers and sisters who are intent not on figuring out how to improve your life, but on being with you wherever your journey leads. You want to know and be known in conversations that aren't really about you or anyone else but Christ."

And I could go on... This book is really challenging me on how I relate also. Am I turning my chair, am I answering from the lower rooms of my life? Do I try to fix others? I am sorry my friends and family if I have done that. I want to go to the Upper room where the Spirit resides and trust Him. I want to rely on Him for my guide. And I want to join you on your walk with Him.