It\u2019s time to begin thinking in new ways about church.<\/p>\n
Clergy often focus on the numbers and problems: the size of the budget, the number of people who pledge, average Sunday attendance, and a long list of other numbers.\u00a0 Beyond that, all too often the conversation among clergy turns to questions about the problems to be solved and the hurdles to be cleared.<\/p>\n
Lay people, on the other hand, often focus on the question, \u201cWhat does this church have to offer?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHow is the preaching, the music, and the youth program?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhat is the potential for friendships?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cCan I connect with the clergy?\u201d<\/p>\n
Both perspectives are understandable \u2014 and, on one level, they are unavoidable perhaps.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s time to change the way that we think about church.<\/p>\n
The game-changer for me has been reading the Book of Revelation.\u00a0 The seven letters to the seven churches are actually prophetic announcements, citing the strengths and weaknesses of seven churches that dominated Asia Minor near the end of the first century.\u00a0 They are also a call to faithfulness in a complex world where each church struggled with the realities of life in the Roman Empire and the tensions posed by the struggle to distinguish been reasonable accommodations to the nature of life and the betrayal of their faith.<\/p>\n
Each church is represented by an angel and seated in the heavenly counsel where the resurrected and glorified Christ sits on the throne, they (along with the churches they represent hear the words of praise or judgment pronounced on the way in which they live.<\/p>\n
Our churches each have an angel \u2014 a spirit \u2014 an inner character \u2014 just as surely as do individuals.\u00a0 The task of the spiritual life is to open that spirit to the work of God \u2014 growing in intimacy and identification with God.<\/p>\n
Getting lost in numbers, programs and problems distracts us from that task.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to look at church differently.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s time to begin thinking in new ways about church. Clergy often focus on the numbers and problems: the size of the budget, the number of people who pledge, average Sunday attendance, and a long list of other numbers.\u00a0 Beyond that, all too often the conversation among clergy turns to questions about the problems to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-spiritual-perspectives"],"yoast_head":"\n