{"id":13211,"date":"2011-01-23T05:39:15","date_gmt":"2011-01-23T11:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/?p=13211"},"modified":"2011-01-22T17:41:10","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T23:41:10","slug":"before-you-go-to-church-today-read-this-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/23\/before-you-go-to-church-today-read-this-please\/","title":{"rendered":"Before you go to church today, read this please"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/le\/currenttrendscolumns\/leadershipweekly\/seatselectionworship.html?start=1\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><strong>Gordon Macdonald<\/strong><\/a>,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>An hour before, when we\u2019d picked our seats in the almost-empty sanctuary, it had never occurred to me that, even in seat-selection, one might actually be experiencing the mysterious guidance of the Holy Spirit, who might have had this future conversation in mind.<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the day I kept recalling that serendipitous encounter. What if I\u2019d resisted the impulse to connect with the man in front of me? What if I\u2019d not invited him to sit with us? What if I\u2019d not been responsive in that service-ending conversation?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Gordon once asked me to sit with him \u2014 at dinner \u2014 and a blessed time it was for me to be with him.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Gordon Macdonald, An hour before, when we\u2019d picked our seats in the almost-empty sanctuary, it had never occurred to me that, even in seat-selection, one might actually be experiencing the mysterious guidance of the Holy Spirit, who might have had this future conversation in mind. The rest of the day I kept recalling that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Before you go to church today, read this please<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From Gordon Macdonald, An hour before, when we&#039;d picked our seats in the almost-empty sanctuary, it had never occurred to me that, even in seat-selection,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/23\/before-you-go-to-church-today-read-this-please\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Before you go to church today, read this please\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From Gordon Macdonald, An hour before, when we&#039;d picked our seats in the almost-empty sanctuary, it had never occurred to me that, even in seat-selection,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/23\/before-you-go-to-church-today-read-this-please\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-01-23T11:39:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-01-22T23:41:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/23\/before-you-go-to-church-today-read-this-please\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/23\/before-you-go-to-church-today-read-this-please\/\",\"name\":\"Before you go to church today, read this please\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-01-23T11:39:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-01-22T23:41:10+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"From Gordon Macdonald, An hour before, when we'd picked our seats in the almost-empty sanctuary, it had never occurred to me that, even in seat-selection,\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/23\/before-you-go-to-church-today-read-this-please\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/23\/before-you-go-to-church-today-read-this-please\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/01\/23\/before-you-go-to-church-today-read-this-please\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Before you go to church today, read this please\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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