June & July, 2011

Congratulation to Casey! You’ve reached the first of many milestones in your life. May your future be exciting and bright!

The Steeple

“I have submitted to be more vile,” John Wesley said when he made the controversial decision to leave the church pulpit and preach in the open fields of Bristol. Methodism’s founder took the Gospel beyond the walls of the church and into world that he saw as his parish, the world that God created and called ‘Good.’ In this world lived people who would not come to church, so Wesley took church to them, proclaiming the good news outside of the confines of stained glass and steeples, pointing to God’s activity in the world he saw as his parish, and breaking down the dividing line between church and world.

I fear that we have retreated back inside the church walls. For some reason, a “secular vs. sacred” dividing line still exists today, and Christianity has adopted its own subculture in reaction to and in fear of our wider culture. Admittedly, there are things in today’s culture that are truly vile and vulgar and not worth our time; but there are also many things in our Christian subculture we can say that same about, if we’re being honest.

When we shut ourselves off from everything that does not have a Christian label affixed to it, we just may miss some of God’s truth that has broken out beyond our stained glass and steeples. As pastor and author Rob Bell writes (channeling the Apostle Paul), “If it is true, if it is beautiful, if it is honorable, if it is right, then claim it. Because it is from God…Why would we ever be surprised when truth turns up in strange places?” (Velvet Elvis, 79-80). I invite you to worship this Sunday as we hear more from the Apostle Paul, who found God at work in strange places like pagan Greece, and as we search for God’s truth “out there” in our culture’s strange places. We may all become a little more vile because of it, and that will be perfectly Wesleyan of us.