original picture found here<\/a>)<\/p>\nIf we\u2019re friends on Facebook, then you may have already read this story.<\/p>\n
But, for me, it\u2019s too wonderful and grace filled, too creative, and too hopeful of a story not to share with as many people as possible.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a wonderful and grace filled story because I think it shows the church at its best, not perfect, but doing everything it can with the means available to it to incarnate the sort of love, compassion, and grace we talk so much about.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an incredibly creative story because because it shows what\u2019s possible if we allow our God given imaginations to run wild and dream up next ways of being incarnating the Body of Christ.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a hopeful story because it shows the promise of the future and what the church can and will be able to accomplish in a radically transforming world that offers new and exciting opportunities to \u201cbe Jesus for world\u201d in ways we never imagined possible.<\/p>\n
The church that I attend is a fairly standard evangelical church. We\u2019re not a mega church. We run about 150, maybe 200 on a \u201cgood\u201d Sunday. We don\u2019t have a hipster pastor or super produced laser lights and fog machines worship. And we definitely wouldn\u2019t be described as \u201ccutting edge.\u201d<\/p>\n
While those are some of the reasons I like the church I attend, they\u2019re also some of the reasons I was so floored by what took place at my church last Sunday.<\/p>\n
Not only did we incorporate texting into worship, we combined it with something else we don\u2019t do a lot of as a traditional evangelical church \u2013 liturgy.<\/p>\n
You read that correctly.<\/p>\n
We practiced liturgical texting at church last Sunday and it was one of the most incredible moments of worship I\u2019ve experienced in a long time and I am incredibly proud of and grateful to my pastor for creating that moment for us.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what happened\u2026<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a 5 month old baby in our church who is sick and hasn\u2019t been able to be at church because of the antibiotics he is on. Before heading in for major heart surgery on Monday, his parents requested baptism.<\/p>\n
They couldn\u2019t bring him to church, so our pastor went to them and baptized the baby at their home. Because of the location, the congregation wasn\u2019t able to perform their traditional role in the baptismal rite.<\/p>\n
So, my pastor decided to think outside the box.<\/p>\n
During worship this past Sunday morning, the day before the planned heart surgery, our pastor put a picture of the baby up on the screen in front of the church. He asked everyone who could to take a picture of the picture with their cell phones.<\/p>\n
After the picture was taken, our pastor read the traditional baptismal liturgy just as he would if the family and their child had been there in person.<\/p>\n
When it came time for the congregation to respond we responded with our phones, texting the picture we had just taken to the child\u2019s parents with 2 simple words attached.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe promise.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was an incredibly holy moment where two worlds collided, the old and the new, to extend the hand of God to a family who needed His loving touch the most.<\/p>\n
My only hope is that we as a church, both my local congregation and the broader Body of Christ, can find the courage and creative to multiply these holy moments of grace and innovation.<\/p>\n
Because if we do, then to quote the great John Wesley, \u201c[we] will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(original picture found here) If we\u2019re friends on Facebook, then you may have already read this story. But, for me, it\u2019s too wonderful and grace filled, too creative, and too hopeful of a story not to share with as many people as possible. It\u2019s a wonderful and grace filled story because I think it shows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3437,"featured_media":9371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>(original picture found here<\/a>)<\/p>\n