I really love where we are as a church right now. It's great to be debt free and to be unencumbered financially for the first time in a long time- especially in the tough economic times we are in. Our missions offering this year has also greatly exceeded our expectations! I believe with all my heart we are postured to accomplish some incredible things for His glory in the days ahead. We will be stepping up our ministries to the poor and marginalized in our community this year and gearing up for more intentional missions objectives overseas as well. I sense real enthusiasm in all levels of our various ministries right now. Our budget giving fell a little short in the last couple of weeks of the year so we need to transfer the excitement we felt toward paying off the CUBE into giving toward our budget- which is the primary ministry resource for all of our ministry objectives.
Last Sunday I taught the first in a series of sermons about our mission as a church and focused on our calling into covenant community. Though we couldn't have anticipated it, I thought it was a striking and somewhat providential topic given the tragic news from this week.
We were all shocked by the horrible murders and attempted assassination of U.S. Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. The man who attempted her assassination is said to be disturbed and emotionally unstable by friends and classmates who know him. The one characteristic that stood out to me in the many offered about Jared Loughner was that he was "increasingly isolated". it is a description we hear a lot for someone who is suffering from mental illness. In fact most of what we characterize as mental illness begins with isolation and aloneness. In truth isolation is extremely destabilizing to the human condition.
"It is not good for man to be alone" God said in the creation account in Genesis. It is a reminder to all of us that God has designed us for life together. We were created for relationship and when we live in aloneness we become less of what God has created us to be.
In one of the first articles that came out about the Loughner family a neighbor who lived across the street from them said he didn't know the last name of the family until the news story broke out. They had been neighbors for 17 years and yet he didn't really know them. I couldn't help but think of how an internet driven society often depersonalizes relationships. Many people in our culture are living shockingly isolated lives within close proximity of other people. Have you noticed that people seem to be more into virtual relationships today than they are real relationships?
And yet virtual relationships are not contemplated in scripture.
One of the central tenants of our theology is that God came to us. The essential point of the incarnation is that God came to us in the flesh. God came to man and looked him in the eye and touched him and felt what man felt and saw life from man's perspective. He took on human flesh so that He could relate to us in this way. The implications are many but one of the most important for moderns like us who are challenged by the values of a media culture is that we are called to each other in physical presence as well.
One of our lead pastors tells a story about his daughter that makes this point. He came home from a long day at work and plopped in his favorite chair and stuck his head into a newspaper as if to hide from the world around him. She danced around the living room in front of him imploring him to look at her new dress and dance moves. He mumbled his approval from behind his newspaper- not paying much attention.
Finally she crawled in his lap. He saw her little fingers grab the top of the paper and then pulling it down in front of him she stuck her little face into his and said, "Daddy, I want you to listen to me with your face."
I think that's an awesome picture of the kind of community we need to value in an increasingly virtual world. We need to listen to each other with our real faces and love each other with our real hearts.
