The beautiful, multicultural, intergenerational family called 'church'


Today I was reflecting on a prayer devotional that I listened to on my walk to our church building Sunday morning. Here's that full prayer:

"In the silence of this moment, I remember the Church gathering today all around the world, asking that the House of God would increasingly become a home for every nation: Father, thank You for Your beautiful, multicultural, intergenerational family, gathering today in so many countries. Forgive us our many failings, heal our deep divisions, and make us one. Let strangers be welcomed in Your house today. May sinners sense amazing grace. Let preachers and worship leaders step out of the limelight into the twilight to fix the spotlight on their words entirely upon You."

Jesus' church is a beautiful reality we get to be part of on Sundays and every day. In keeping His command to love on another, may we add a few more prayer lines:

"Lord, would you please give me opportunities this week to show true hospitality to others and to do it generously, joyfully, and without grumbling. Would you give me the grace to embrace interruptions as gifts from You, and help me to make space in my schedule, at my table, in my home, and in my heart for others, Amen!"

Let's today be Jesus' hands and feet in our world and truly BE the church!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Going along with the crowd?

Image
Over the last several years I've found some helpful writings from the early church writings of the first few centuries of Christianity. Here is a quote I found interesting today (from www.commonprayer.net): Cyprian of Carthage, a third-century North African bishop, wrote, “The world is going mad in mutual extermination, and murder, considered as a crime when committed individually, becomes a virtue when it is committed by large numbers. It is the multiplication of the frenzy that assures impunity to the assassins.” It made me think of the old idea of peer pressure and going with the flow of culture rather than standing out and even swimming against the downstream flow of secular modernity.  Maybe Cyprian was correct in seeing how evil can become standard if enough people in a society or culture accept it? I guess it seems like the idea of strength in numbers and fitting in, etc. Jesus spoke of this danger during His ministry - specifically in the message on the mount He gave in Mat
Read more

My eye is not on the density of the fog but on the living God...

Image
Too good not to share this! “ I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me .” (Acts 27:25.) I WENT to America some years ago with the captain of a steamer, who was a very devoted Christian. When off the coast of Newfoundland he said to me, “The last time I crossed here, five weeks ago, something happened which revolutionized the whole of my Christian life. We had George Mueller of Bristol on board. I had been on the bridge twenty-four hours and never left it. George Mueller came to me, and said, “Captain, I have come to tell you that I must be in Quebec Saturday afternoon.” “It is impossible,” I said. “Very well, if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other way. I have never broken an engagement for fifty-seven years. Let us go down into the chart-room and pray.” I looked at that man of God, and thought to myself, what lunatic asylum can that man have come from? I never heard of such a thing as this. “Mr. Mueller,” I said, “do you know how dense this fog is?” “No,” h
Read more

Freedom

Image
Freedom is a powerful word to me. In fact, when I think about the idea of freedom, I think of possibilities and potential. Freedom feels like release and growth and opportunity.  Jesus spoke about freedom being linked to knowing the truth. In his words to some of the first century Jewish leaders, He said,  “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)  In the other New Testament writings, there are statements like: 2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 1 Peter 2:16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. And in Galatians, Paul, the writer, spoke of being free from the tyranny of trying to live out the law perfectly through faith in Jesus.  He wrote, Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. And, Ga
Read more