Church as a Love Affair

A dramatic sky and iffy radar readings make for some uncertainty as to whether or not (weather or not) we’ll have church this morning. Such is the reality when you don’t have an actual building but instead meet outside with the sky as your cathedral ceiling. It’s glorious when the day is bright, but less practical when intermittent and blustery showers are blowing by.

I’ll be sad if service is cancelled.

I don’t think you have to be a pastor-type to be all into Sunday mornings and the gathering of God’s people the way I experience it. This was part of my spiritual DNA long before I knew any sense of vocational calling to it. Even as a child, my family was not just dedicated to every-single-Sunday, but the whole deal of this being a Monday to Saturday community as well. I didn’t resent it. I loved being there early to set up chairs, and staying a bit later while the adults finished off conversations and the children found all the best hiding spots in the building.

Later I would fall in love with the capital C of Church that includes believers all over the world. Last Sunday I was preaching to a vibrant group of beloveds just 45 km east of Chiang Mai, and it was home. This morning another home-church of my heart will gather in the southwest corner of Kitchener. If the weather holds out, there will be a gathering of faithful Cognashene cottagers to worship with. And to me, all of this is a beautiful thing.

Not a perfect thing, but a beautiful thing just the same. I grieve with all of us in the reality that harm has been done within what it supposed to be the safety of the gathering of the saints. I have been harmed. And I live with the knowledge that, despite my best intentions otherwise, I have done harm. Let no fallible human being ever to step foot inside the doors of the Church fall under the illusion that they are immune to or incapable of doing real damage. We are not called saints because of our own merit or imperfection, not by any means.

Yet for some inexplicable reason, Jesus set us up to live in community like this. And, quite astonishingly He calls us His Bride. Cherished. Beautiful. Revered. The object of all He can offer. Please, dear fellow-followers of Christ, if we need to have hard and honest conversations, let’s do so, and let the healing be done in the name of Jesus. But let’s be very cautious about neglecting, rejecting, casting aspersions on and offering generalized criticisms of what the Bridegroom holds as precious.

Just something in me needed to say all of that this morning.
Hopefully I've done so with grace and love and respect.

Ironically, the same weather conditions that might cancel our service on the rocks this morning also interferes with the signal that might bring Highview’s online service to my computer. So, I’m not really sure how this morning will pan out.

Either way, I pray good things for you this Sunday.
Good and healing and loving and vibrant things.