Most of all, I am grieved at what seems like a total lack of understanding of what the church is and who Jesus calls us to be.
The church is not the group of people that support one restaurant or another. The church is not a special interest group, a group of people who vote one particular way. The church is not a place where people who think and look alike gather.

The church is the very body of Christ, and you cheapen it when you pretend that a bus full of youth traveling to a fast food resaurant counts as a mission trip (I am not making this up). You cheapen the church when you allow this kind of thing to become synonymous with what it means to follow God, but of course this is what happens when you are only interested with filling your worship space, with pushing your agenda, with increasing your power.
Yes, we need people. Yes, the church needs to reach out to a hurting world, and there are a multitude of ways in which we can share the love of God with others. But there is more to "being church" than butts in seats. There is more to being the body of Christ than supporting one cause or another. The church is a far more difficult, mystical being. Let's reach out in love, but let's also have integrity about what we believe. Let's make sure the faith we share has depth to it, has flesh on its bones. Let's make sure that the faith we share isn't just some retooled version of our own biases and values. Let's acknowledge the difficult, maddening, frustrating, fulfilling, world-changing love of Jesus.
So today, I'm celebrating Jesus Apprecation Day. I'm going to be about the work of feeding the hungry, giving (clean) water to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, being present with the prisoner, seeing that the sick are treated with adequate care--and with dignity, sheltering the homeless, reminding the world (and the church!) that each person has within him or her the image of God, and doing everything I can to ensure that everybody knows that Jesus loves them, deeply, and that they ought to love that way, too. And if Jesus wants me to keep going, I may not even stop once tomorrow rolls around.
Amen D...Amen...
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