I think I'm on to a book idea. I'm reading Mike King's book, Presence-Centered Youth Ministry, and I'm kind of getting ticked off, again. Not at Mike, because I think he's really one of us now, but he's really making me think about us.
I'm tired of my church getting blistered. I'm tired of good people in the church getting blistered by the church (maybe that's why the church is getting blistered, but I don't think that's the only reason). I think we've just gotten away from who we are. Call me Captain Obvious if you must, but roll with me as I rant, hopefully more than once a month.
Before I go any further, can I just say, I'm speaking for myself. I love my church, and I love what I get to do in the church. All that being said, here's what I'm feeling today.
We don't have an orthodoxy problem, I think what we believe is sound. Not sure I'd still be here if I didn't believe that. You can go to sound bites from guys ranging from Ghandi to Tony Campolo on that. Ghandi's quote is classic, Tony was quoted in 1987, saying that he believed that the Nazarene's have it right doctrinally, they just don't live it out. Ouch! And what did we do with that? We made that a matter of pride in our doctrine instead of that leading us to some serious self examination.
Like I said, we don't have an orthodoxy problem, from where I sit, we have a problem with orthopraxy. Here's my question for the day. Will you chew on it with me?
Have we compromised our "orthodoxy" in our attempt to bring correction to our "orthopraxy"?
Again, I'm not saying that I'm even the first hundredth person to ask this question, but I'm thinking about it now. I hope there are some out there who will think about this with me. What would it look like for us to live out who we claim to be? And come on, please, let's not water this down to whether we can drink alcohol or not? Please? I think there are bigger fish to fry.
