No, the change I am talking about is more vague; a sense that God is preparing to do something big and different in the life of the churches. None of this should be unexpected. It is who we are in Christ. We are a people who are called to grow and to change more and more into the likeness of Christ. As I see the change a-coming, I recognize that it can be difficult at the same time. It makes me think of an article from the Kaleo Fellowship Web Site, kaleochurch.com by David Fairchild called“Life or death,” from May 2, 2004:
Some of us are confused about what it means “to live.”
We should have instinctively known life would be difficult. We were pulled out of a nice warm place, buck naked, in front of strangers, and spanked until we cry. That theme repeats itself for the next several decades.
Some of us have been told a lie that sounds something like this: Pray this prayer and your life will be wonderful. Your life will be filled with happiness and joy. Your life will look like a Hallmark card set in a Thomas Kincaid painting. You were lied to.
Someone may have had such zeal to get you to pray a prayer that he or she broke one of the commandments to get you to pray it!
Some of you may have also been told another lie — that Christ is a spiritual piñata and if you whack him with the right prayer stick, he’ll be forced to give you whatever you want. “Pray this prayer for 30 days and your borders will be increased.” The only thing that is proven to grow my borders after 30 days is eating McDonald’s. I have seen my borders grow before my very eyes! Yet I don’t see a book titled The Prayer of Ronald.
Only in an American culture would we expect a life without suffering, and life without pain, a life without difficulties ....
Jesus comes to Paul in dramatic circumstances and Paul is so changed by this experience and by the reality of Christ, that his life is flipped upside down and he is now living in response to another. That other is Christ.
But notice that Paul doesn’t say to live for Christ, he says to live is Christ. Christ is life.
When the time to change comes, it is often painful and costly. I have also discovered that the things which cost us nothing are all too often worth the price we paid -- nothing. Change challenges the things we hold dear; it calls us to re-examine our resources, where we currently pour our time and energy. We are dared to be bold in looking at our traditions and assumptions. We must be willing to lose our lives for the sake of the gospel so that we might find our life in Christ [Matthew 16:25].
I wish I had a catchy end for this blog; I don't. I simply feel a building tsunami waiting to wash away some stale, ineffective parts of my ministry to prepare the land for the new building by the Spirit of God.
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