Churches and Hospitals

I would like you guys to read my friend's blog entitled All You Need To Know here before reading this one, it's sort of a opener. I'll wait here...
Wow, that was quick. You must have made all A's in reading! Just kidding. ANYhoo, here is some of my thoughts on The Pensacola Project.
The place is indeed crawling with churches on every corner, street, road, and edifice you can imagine, but hospitals/medical offices are seemingly on every corner as well. I spoke to a marketing person with Baptist Memorial and she said to me, "Pensacola has lots of hospitals and with that, a lot of medically related professions, its a large part of our economy". I of course agreed with her having rode around Pensacola and some of its surrounding communities. The two thoughts of churches and hospitals being everywhere sort of rolled around in my mind. What is this observation trying to tell me. Here is what I concluded (keep in mind that this a spiritual observation about something physical). The church is supposed to be a hospital too, right? The difference is physical and spiritual of course but the resemblance is there. That being the case, the people should be very "healthy" physically and spiritually, right? But they are just like any other town. They have all the same issues. The same problems as most other towns. They are a resort town and I'm sure rely heavily on tourism. But the tourists I know that go there don't come back with more "health" as they do with more sand on their feet. So what you ask? The point that I am trying to make is the same point that my friend makes in his blog, "Have you told us everything we need to know?" I don't think so. The answer is not more churches with their own specialties but rather churches with healing mentalities. We have cultivated an idea that more churches (in the traditional sense)=more genuine spirituality. However, the result is the same, more churches =the same or less spirituality. Why is there so many not seeing this?!? I am not specifically picking on Pensacola, but rather in a general sense (or nonsense). When will we wake up and realize that having a church more accessible to the already churched is crazy talk. We should be non-traditional in our approach to "doing church". Church in this post-modern world of which we are a part of (like it or not) is not beginning a change its already changed and setting up for newer changes. No matter if you offer a new wrapper on the same pack of underwear, it's still just underwear. Changing the wrapper isn't enough, the contents have to change in order to be effective. Endnote: I am not saying that we should change the message of the gospel to make it more appealing (which I personally appall). I AM saying however if we don't change how we PRESENT the message we are going to lose the battle of communication. Let's check our Christianese at the door and build a relationship with someone purely to have a relationship with them. If something becomes of that relationship and they join the Way, glory! If not, we have no less reason to be their friend. Jesus called us His friends. Sinners (of which I am the president of the local chapter) were Jesus' friends. How can I do or be better than that?
SIM CP

The Oval Office

While recently in Pensacola on business, my buddy and I went to eat at a hole in the wall place called The Oval Office. We went there because of the advertisement we saw in the hotel's local eatery guide. It said that we would receive a 10% discount if we showed our room keys and they boasted the best burger of Myrtle Beach. Well we got there and the place was more of a bar than an eating establishment, but what the heck, we decided to stay and eat a burger. At the close of our meal, I showed our waitress our room key and asked about the 10% discount. She seemed at first confused but then realized what it was we were asking about and said that she would get that done for us, but had never really done it before (should have been a hint to what is to come in this story). My back was to the bar and my buddy was facing it when he said that we were in trouble. He went on to describe the scene. Our waitress had put her reading glasses on and had gotten a calculator out...to figure 10 PERCENT. Now I know that I am being harsh, but isn't that one of the easiest things to figure? Anyway, to make matters even funnier, she brings us the ticket and tells us that she made sure it was right because she had used her calculator. Holding back a gut-laugh, we thanked her, and left the eating establishment. This one event stayed with us and we laughed about it many times while away. So thanks Oval Office waitress for making our trip enjoyable.
SIM CP

Amazing Grace

The book entitled "What is so amazing about grace" by Phillip Yancey is a must read for any fundamentalist. I for some time had grappled with the apparent lack of grace offered by that faction. I was a proponent for most of my life, but the lack of grace seemed evident. There seemed to always be a "but" at the end of a grace statement. For example, "The homosexuals are part of the world and God loves them and died for them, BUT they are living a life of sin". Yes, I will consent to the fact that in deed they are living in a life of sin, BUT so am I! I live in sin everyday. How does this make me better loved by an all-loving God? It doesn't. I guess the chapter in Yancey's book about his friend Mel (who is homosexual) was followed by the chapter on cheap grace for a reason. There is a fine line where grace is concerned. If we are not careful though , we will hold to one side of the law/grace fence and one will ultimately be missing the "balancer".
I was talking to my friend the other day and asked him what he thought the balancer of grace is. I thought about it and I kept coming back to just "ungrace" which seemed a surface answer. Something was missing. The statement he made came from the same book by Yancey in which Phillip states that grace is cheap when in advance we conspire to sin knowing that God will forgive us in the end. He also used an example of me (who is married) going out and cheating on my wife. Now according to grace, God will forgive my sin, but the consequence of that sin is that I will have broken up my marriage and family. At best, I will have only put her trust in me in peril. Without trust, our relationship will be set back years possibly decades. The bottom line is why do I not cheat on my wife. The answer is love for God and love for my wife and family. I do not do that because I love God and want to follow His commandments and love my wife and family too much to chance losing them.
I guess what I am trying to say is grace, though the coolest thing God arranged for us, has the greatest amount of room for error on our part. Let's be careful not to go overboard on either side, too much law or too much "cheap" grace will only harm us and those around us.
Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker, "With great power comes great responsibility" and that is how we should treat the grace of God.
Graciously,
SIM Church Planter