The God of the Long Haul

I took two classes in modules these past two weeks at NTS.  The morning module was Genesis and the evening module was Congregational Discipleship.

One of the assignments for Genesis was to read through it in one sitting.  That took a LONG time and it was well worth it.  Then we got to do it three times, each time we took more notes on the stories and characters.  Through this process I was reminded time and time again of the beauty, power, awesomeness and gracefulness of our God who created the universe with care and precision, gave humanity free will and when the first humans sinned in the Garden he did not leave them alone but graciously provided covering.  I was also struck by the brokenness of humanity, even those who had been chosen by God to be his people set apart.  I had forgotten that Abraham lied twice about who his wife was!  But even in the brokenness God pursued his people wherever they were.  One of the commentators called God the "mobile God" because there was no place that He could not be found (recalling the Psalmist's words "where can I go to flee from Your Spirit?" from Psalm 139).  God showed up time and time again on behalf of his people, giving direction, correction, safety, promises, interpretations and provisions.

It's always interesting to see how the content of my various classes interact with each other.  My other class was Congregational Discipleship, which focuses on how the church sees and structures itself so that it will effectively disciple all members of the congregation in the way of Jesus.  There was much in this class on spiritual development, teaching techniques and educational theory, and all of these combined pointed to one thing: EVERYTHING we do as the community of God plays a part in the formation of the people.  Everything says something about and reinforces what we believe.  Yet, because the structure of church is made up of people and relationships, there will always be an incompleteness and room for growth in God's grace.  


This is where Genesis swoops in.  God is the God of the Long-Haul.  As God bore with the people in Genesis and gave direction, correction, safety, promises, interpretations and provisions, so God bears with the church today.  Like Abraham we are called to be his people and sometimes failure happens.  Broken relationships, missed opportunities, gross misunderstandings, overlooked needs, etc...But God remains faithful.  Time and time again He proves himself and takes over where we mess up.


A friend just shared with me a story about her dad accepting Christ into his life just six weeks before he passed forward.  He had thumbed his nose at God throughout his life.  And it was largely in part because of hurt received from the church.  But in the end, God worked his way in, softening his heart so that he did open his heart to Jesus.  The God of the Long Haul.  Awesome!

Together

Some ponderings from my Theology of Church and Ministry notes.

I've been asked before "How is your relationship with God?" Usually it causes me to ponder and reflect, finding those places of joy and sources of sorrow. Sometimes I've used the question with teens. The usual response is, "Um, good, I think." Okay. Good. What's that mean?

Anyway, I've been thinking about the question and wondering if it can be asked in this way, "How is our relationship with God?" or "How is your family's relationship with God?" Is it possible to relate to God together? If so, what does this look like? Is it only on Sunday morning or through Bible Study or serving?

When Christianity has primarily been viewed through the individualistic lens of "my relationship with God", it is important that we ask further questions, guiding us to examine how "we" are relating to God together. I know this, but I'm wrestling with what it looks like.

So, I've just typed about 13 sentences. Incoherent they seem to me now that I look over them, but I wanted to see what my ten readers think.

How do we relate to God together? Is it possible to evaluate/measure/picture a community's relationship with God?

Get Messy

When you read the gospels about Jesus, you find him constantly touching people and allowing himself to be touched. I wonder what this has to say to us about how we related to others. Jesus seemed to have a way about him that was open to anybody who came near him. He'd pick up kids and put them on his lap, he'd speak to prostitutes, he'd touch lepers, he'd let prostitutes clean his feet (which had a whole different meaning then than it does now).

And he never promised that changing the world would be a clean cut thing. It seems that whenever you get into a relationship with someone you really discover that it is a messy process. Our challenge to our youth group this year is to get messy, to dive into others lives and seek to love people right where they are.

One of Jesus' most famous parables was the mustard seed parable, where he said that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that grows and becomes a tree that birds can perch in. (It's great how Jesus uses stories and makes you actually process what he is saying, rather than just dumping info into you.) We had a friend, Brad Grinnen, come and explore those thoughts with our senior high youth this past weekend and it was quite the weekend. I am excited to see how our kids own what God is doing in their lives and seek to plant seeds of love, grace and mercy in the lives around them.