Dear Caldwell,
This week the Faith Walkers, our mid-week study group, are considering worship as a spiritual discipline (we meet tomorrow at 10:30 in Shelby, come and join in!).
One of our readings warns of the risk in worship of declining “from adoration (of God) to demand and from the supernatural to the ethical.”
We do indeed walk a fine balance each week, don’t we? The urgency of the “here and now” can lead us to believe that it’s all up to us (or all ABOUT us). We can take our eyes off God and reduce the glorification of God in worship to something closer to a social gathering with a speech about ethics and good citizenship.
How do we avoid the convenience of saying to ourselves that the world is just no good and that all will be well in the Kingdom of God in Heaven? How do we take full measure of the limitations of this worldly realm while also staying active and hopeful as peacemakers, bridge-builders and justice-restorers?
In other words, how do we live from Sunday to Sunday as those scripture calls to be “in the world” but not “of the world?”
In Sunday’s scripture (John 14:23-29), we hear Jesus’ assurance to his disciples, “I do not give to you as the world gives.” In a world full of hurt, that’s a message worth digging into.
Please offer prayers for those in our faith community who are recovering from emotional and physical hurts, in the hospital, waiting on medical testing results, those looking for better jobs and those and waiting for surgery to relieve pain.
We pray for our students, teachers, school administrators and all who teach our children as the school year winds down.
If you didn’t the bios of our 2019 HOPE Gambrell Social Justice Scholars, you can read about them here.
Watch for a full update on life at Caldwell at the end of the week.
In Christ,
John