Today started out mixed up. Overslept until 6:30 so I didn't have time to work out too much. Had a decent, albeit boring, day at work. Got a fair amount done on a case that bugs the heck out of me. Was ready to come home and collapse when Sue called and said Kathy and David had invited us over for steak. Man, did that hit the spot. David's a master-griller. The steaks were perfect. After dinner we sat around playing dominos and then Farkle until we were too tired to go on. Wild and crazy people, we are.

Tomorrow will be a fairly warm day and I want to spend it working in and around the house taking care of alot of the debris and "deferred maintenance" that I let build up over the winter. Hope I actually get something done.

Get to go to Water's Edge fellowship (eat and games) Sunday evening. Can't wait til the next preview service for their worship time. Not sure where we're going to church Sunday AM. But, we'll get some good Emmaus worship Saturday night!

I thought I'd hate church shopping. I'm loving it. I feel like I'm on a vacation, or on some sort of retreat.

Since leaving our old church I have experienced a strange combination of spiritual excitement and exhaustion. Excitement to see what God is going to do with us, and for us. Exhaustion because we come to the end of years of pressure and frustration and see ourselves, and friends, dealing with the grief of leaving the old structure (or making the decision to stay and deal with it). I pray that God will lead each of us to the church home or fellowship where He wants us to be.

One thing I've done is concentrate too much on church "process." I have centered on what the church ought to be, and examined church models too long. All this reading and talk of home, house, cell, emerging, postmodern, or whatever church has been instructive, but it has also made me focus too much on earthly structure rather on my Father. I'm starting to realize that now, and am beginning to find more joy in simply reading His Word, being with Him and worshiping Him. Man, I need this.

Went to Water's Edge fellowship time tonight. I was a little uncomforatble part of the time just meeting new people. But I got over that and came away with a real good feeling for the people. I think I'm going to like this. Now, God, help me do some ministry along with it. Or, maybe I just need to cool it for awhile and accept a little ministry myself.

One of my favorite authors is Brennan Manning (The Ragamuffin Gospel). However, I have heard others say that he is a "universalist" who believes that we are all saved and that we all simply need to realize it. In other words, we are not required to make that tough choice to lay down our lives and "accept" His lordship as a precondition to our salvation. The universalist would say that everyone is saved; we just all don't realize it yet.

I thought the criticism was over blown, but I decided to re-read his book in order to see for myself. So I've gotten through the first couple chapters and I can't get a real handle on Manning. There is a lot about grace, but I've been looking for the need for the sinner's repentence. Then, we get to pg. 73, and Brennan is talking about our misconceptions about grace, and he says that too easily become legalists and fret about "the heresy of universalism." Ok...maybe we do. But, Brennan, what is the real gospel? He goes on to explain:

"The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven. It serves as an expression of gratitude rather than an effort to earn forgiveness. Thus the sequence of forgiveness and then repentance, rather than repentance and then forgiveness, is crucial for understanding the gospel of grace."

Now, I don't have any problem with a church running on the basis of "belonging then believing." Quite often it is a person's relationships with other Christians that loves them into the Kingdom. What I'm not too sure of is what Brennan means by saying "forgiveness and then repentance."

Is Brennan describing the route to salvation here? I agree that we don't have to "pretty ourselves up" for God before we are good enough to merit his salvation. But is universal forgiveness just laying around out there, waiting for us to discover it so that, afterwards, our gratitude encourages us to repent of our sins? If that is the case, then the whole human race has already been forgiven, we just don't all realize it yet; and that is universalism.

Or, in this passage, is Brennan simply talking about the process that occurs after salvation (He does start out by saying "The saved sinner...")? The saved sinner realizes that, at any given moment, he is just as forgiven as he ever will be, and, in gratitude for that amazing grace, turns from his sin, the best he can, in order to live a life pleasing to his adoptive Father. The beggar is grateful for the banquet laid before him. All beggars are invited, but not all decide to attend. The banquet is still only available for those who accept the invitation. And, that's not universalism.

Well, now that I've talked it through a little bit, it seems to me that Brennan is saying the latter (the gratitude of the saved sinner), rather than the former (the gratitude of the already forgiven human who happens to realize that we all have been forgiven by a gracious God).

I really enjoyed the Ragamuffin Gospel when I first read it. I probably enjoyed Ruthless Trust even more. But, I'm still cautious and am looking for more statements in Brennen's works that shows me he's not a universalist. These two books fiercely attack Christian legalism (as it often should be attacked). All of us, no matter how "mature" we are in the faith, are still just ragamuffins, adopted into the Father's household only because of Christ's merit. None of us deserve to be here, or have any higher place in the household than another. But I still need to ask: even though all may be invited to the feast, isn't it a prerequisite that each of us first accept the invitation before we can count ourselves as otherwise unworthy ?

Went to Redeemer Covenant this morning. We went to their contemporary service. It was very professional. I guess that was part of the problem, because we felt we were more part of a performance than a worship service.

A church wants to grow, so it discovers among its members (or imports) more and more talented performers to lead worship. As the church grows, the members expect more professional worship leaders. Soon the worship service becomes "performance."

I wonder if Water's Edge can stake its popularity on its small groups, rather than on increasingly professional music.

Meanwhile, Michael went to Asbury and reports good things. He seems to enjoy the youth group and enjoyed the "living room" worship service.

Tonight we head for a fellowship dinner with Water's Edge folks. Sounds like fun.

There's very little that Molly Ivans writes that I disagree with. She
nails it once again.
Go get'em Molly.

Getting up to go try another church this morning. I feel like
I've already found my church (Water's Edge), but its' next preview
service is a month away, so we will look at other churches in the
mean time. That'll make sure that we're not just picking Water's
Edge "on the rebound."

It's hard to "shop" for churches. I feel like a consumer christian.
But, if God's going to lead us somewhere, we've got to look around.
He can't steer a ship that is dead in the water. OK. I'm going
to go get ready now. We're going to Redeemer Covenant "contemporary"
service this morning, and Michael and a friend are going to Asbury.

Well, we finally left our old church. Tough decision, with a lot of tears and fears.

Tears: leaving the youth; leaving a few friends that remain there (not really "leaving," but, you know...); what will I do with myself when it's VBS time?; upset that people may be upset with us for having to make this decision;

Fears: that we're not doing the right thing; that we will never find where God wants us to be and we will get sucked into the cosmic void and vaporize; that we won't be able to find a place to "minister"; that our small group will drift apart.

Just looking at the two lists, the "tears" list is real and rational (those things are real and hurt), while the "fears" list is just a reflection of a lack of faith on my part. Do I really believe that God will abandon us and leave us in a cold and dry land? Nah.

In fact, Sue and I are looking at this as another great adventure. God's already placed a great possibility before us. A small church plant, close to where we live, called Water's Edge Covenant Church. WE (Water's Edge...not "us" we) has several elements that we might enjoy: 1) it will be based on small groups, daily fellowship and relationship, rather than mere Sunday go-to-meeting; 2) it's whole focus is outreach, stressing "belonging, then believing" rather than "believing, then belonging" (i.e.: love them into the Kingdom); 3) it is a church plant from the Evangelical Covenant denomination, a conservative, congregational, evangelical denomination that provides a "covering" to help prevent WE from moving into "error"; 4) GREAT community worship services (kinda Emmaus-class worship) that are contemporary (lookie there...young people who want to come to worship!), are open to all of the small group members, as well as anyone else who just wants to stop in; provide time for communion and personal prayer; allow freedom to minsiter and be ministered to, but still proceeds in an orderly manner; 5) is not "building" focused; 6) has a vision for ministry to the poor; 7) has a "that's a great idea you've got... go do it" attitude. I could go on... We're not sure where we're going to land yet, but we do feel like God's got his hand in this process.

Over the last few years I have been investigating the whole concept of home church, in all of its "emerging church" forms. The Water's Edge format is a middle way between traditional Sunday church and house church. It provides house church dynamics, protected with weekly group worship and outreach. One of the blogs I regularly read is by Alan Creech (http://www.vbcc.net/alancreech/). His most current blog has a couple of paragraphs that really touch my situation. Here he talks about the joys, fears and pitfalls of leaving his old church and venturing out into house church:

Alrighty then. My friend Steve and I were meeting on Monday night to talk, as we usually do. We drank some coffee and talked about this and that. Steve now has a group of people meeting in his home on Saturday nights to explore new ways of being the church with one another. We began exploring our backgrounds, which are in some ways very similar, and where we are now. We talked about not becoming bitter and not merely sitting around bitching about the old way - how after you get that out on the table, you need to move on or it will eat you alive.

Now, that picture. Funny, I just had to take that picture. We also talked about being called to a new "country" - a new "land" and being afraid to go there. Leaving the land of well-worn paths, not all of which are bad - but being called by God to go through a very narrow valley into a new place, an unfamiliar place with no paths yet worn. Steve is pointing to our visual aid of the narrow neck of territory that we must go through in order to get to the other side. This place is very uncomfortable, very tight indeed sometimes. There aren't really alot of provisions there, mostly rock and dirt with a few rivulets of water coming out of cracks in the walls. It's a place you want to get through, not stay in. And it kinda sucks while you're there. For this reason, many do not make it through. It's just too much. They retreat back to the familiar land and never quite see the open expanse they were called to on the other side of the narrow valley. It was a good talk. Encouraging for both of us. Oh yeah, going through this dry neck of land, this passageway, alone, is not the best idea. That rarely ends up well. God's Grace be with us.

Way to go Alan.