Missio Dei

Jason Clark has graciously allowed me to post on his site.  The title is called, A Space Where Love Resides.  It’s about how we can easily hide in church.  Here’s an excerpt.

For several weeks I would enter the parking lot, walk from my car to the sanctuary, sit at my seat, stay for the message and then leave. The only times I was engaged during those weeks were when I was handed a bulletin and when the church invited us to say hello to those around me. In both cases I didn’t say anything more than, “hello”. And I realized over time that I could hide if I wanted to.

And as I think about this little experiment, I realized that church can often be a place to hide if we want to. The structure of church allows us to show up and punch our tickets, yet never really engage any real relationship. And to be fair, my experiment was essentially before the church began to embrace the “small group”. Most of Ralph Neighbour’s work had yet to be embraced on a larger basis. Most of the structures the church supported all happened at the church building. I’m not knocking this, just stating what was at the time.

Read more here.