"..., i think."


don't we all?

i found it odd and and somewhat fascinating this week, that in the 12 years that tommy gray was at clearbranch, and six of those years i was serving on a staff right down from the road from the church that would be king, i never once heard him preach. i always heard good things. the words "dynamic" and "passionate" were tossed around more often than any other that come to mind. to that end, i was fairly eager to get a taste of his sermon this morning and see just what all the fuss was about. his church had boomed over the last ten years and he had been given a ton of credit for it, as well he should have. my expectations were high.

stupid expectations.

don't get me wrong. nothing was really wrong with the message this morning. tommy clearbranch seemed to mean every word that he said. he shared some very genuine and personal stories and related them to his grand point. he talked with plenty of spark and emphasized some of his main ideas well enough that he garnered some "amens" from our congregation. that, in and of itself, is saying something i suppose. but i left pretty disappointed. more focus was placed on the negative than the positive. maybe that's what we, as a church, deserve. who's to say? yes. who is to say? we were given a shaky stat about how 95 percent of "christians" would say that they had never led another person to conversion. wait, what? and, who, again, is keeping track of this? i would like to, no, i need to meet the person in charge of looking into other's hearts and confirming this being true or not. or, wait, is this one of those times where we are just supposed to take people at their word. hmm. that's a novel idea. anyway, to say that the "95 percent" thing didn't sit well with me doesn't really matter. the pastor shared some personal and tragic experiences that he's had with cancer in his life, telling us that if had the cure, he would share it with the world so that no more would have to suffer at the hands of the terrible disease. alas, he did not have the cure for cancer. but he had something better. the gospel. and so do we. the correlation? if we have the answer for everlasting life and a more fulfilling and selfless experience before we pass on to that everlasting life, why wouldn't we share it?

as many times as i have thrown out the sinking ship analogy towards our church's current situation, i was amused that we heard the tried and true story of john harper, the evangelical minister that found his way onto the titanic in 1912. as the ship went down, he proclaimed the good news until the water took him away and is now considered one of the heroes of our faith. i wondered what we, as a church, should take from this story. should we take inspiration from it and allow it to strengthen our own resolve when sharing our respective personal experiences with god? or should we hear that huffman is sinking and we better start preaching to whomever will listen now because it's only a matter of time before the water takes us away too? maybe a little of both.

but the operative phrase, in my opinion, that rev. clearbranch used over the course of his twenty minutes was simple. twice when he came back to the lectern from the center of the pulpit as he was finishing a thought, he concluded the thought by saying "..., i think."

i thought, yep. that's about right.

how rigid is our faith anyway? how inflexible are we? after previewing his message with the idea of the natural church development program being about church "health" and not "growth", there wasn't a whole lot of practical application towards us being healthy again. unless, to be healthy, we are just to get off our ass and tell our stories, our witnesses, to anyone that will listen and hope that a few think well enough of us that they come to our church.

but where does that leave those in our community or, hell, our families, who have no interest in those stories motivating them to be a part of our church, our community of faith? what if they have some faith in some thing, but it isn't exactly the "one" thing that we subscribe to? do we rule them out? what if they have heard enough stories and are more interested in seeing the long term effects of how "christians" and non-christians choose to live out their lives versus being persuaded by some great or not-great oratory only backed up with false pretense.

here's where tommy clearbranch lost me and you can tell me if you think i am shallow or not. it was early on. after having been a district superintendent for just over half a year, he commented that "he" would be responsible for closing churches, specifically three this year, throwing out the date of feb. 22 to us on which, i assume, will be his first "turn off the lights" service of 2009. "he" will be closing three churches? "he" will? maybe it was just a figure of speech. it was definitely said with sadness, but the way it was presented felt weird to me. ds's don't close churches. churches close churches. it's the same idea as me "firing" an employee. i don't fire anyone. an employee fires themself. i've never made a cashier steal. i've never asked a stocker to be habitually late. i've never slashed a guy's tires and stolen his cell phone forcing them to no-call and no-show. maybe, as their boss, i am the one that has to make them aware that they are no longer on the schedule, and maybe this was the same take the pastor was making this morning, just without the context. the delivery of it, though, was poorly executed to the congregation he was standing in front of.

not that anyone asked me.

not that anyone cares what i think.

nor should they.

"i think". absolutely! go get 'em, tiger. think away and be paid handsomely to preach to those in your district on how best to serve the kingdom of god. i respect that. i really do. it's part of the methodist system that i have signed up for. but i think too. and so does he. and so does she. and the rest of them. and i totally disagree with you, on a fundamental level, on how my church should evangelize and reach out to our community. now that we've gotten that out of the way, what now? is it ok to disagree?

how do we move forward and towards health then?

i have an idea. i think...

don't we all?