Dreaming of God’s Church

Let me be perfecty honest: I'm a damn fool when it comes to reign of God. I believe in the core of my bones that this world is not the way God intended it...and the way God intended it is considered "bad news" for the powerful and the mighty.  Fool or not that's where I plant myself.  While working on this Sunday's sermon (Looking over Luke's 6:20-31 Blessings and Woes) I found myself dreaming about the church...not just my beloved congregation of St. Clare's, but the church in general.  What would the reign of God look like in our congregations?  The following is my list. But remember, they are the words of a foolish man!

The following are things I dream of when I think of St. Clare's Episcopal Church:

 

• I dream of a healthy church.  A church grounded in a relationship with God that allows blessings to flow through it.  A church that is an organic incarnation of the body of Christ, rather than just an organization.
• I dream of a church that is filled with faith, hope and love.  A place filled with God’s purpose, presence, and power.
• I dream of a church that embraces the sacred in deep and abiding ways and serves God in its own unique vocation. A church that seeks not to imitate, but be authentic through the power of the Holy Spirit.
• I dream of a church that is more concerned about ends than means; who longs to unleash upon the world mature Christians whose countenance reflect the citizenship of heaven more than the citizenship of Earth. It is a church that looks for the face of Jesus in everyone it meets and everyone it meets sees the face of Jesus in them.
• I dream of a church that is ready to wage peace, hope, and love, not because it is fashionable, not because it is socially acceptable, and not because it is a conservative or liberal agenda, but because God desires nothing less, and because the world can wait no longer for the “good people” of the world to do nothing.
• I dream of a church whose first language is love, whose accent is hope and forgiveness, and whose homeland is compassion.
• I dream of a church that is not content with “fear mongering,” “hate mongering,” but rather speaks and lives out a peace, joy, and hope that transcends logic or understanding.

Yours for the reign of God,

 

Ron