My Thoughts on Church Life for 2007

I wrote a response to Bill Dahl's questions about our hopes and fears for the church in 2007. Bill runs a website called "The Porpoise Diving Life." It's a quirky/cool site with lots of deep stuff, and yes that pun about "deep" was intentional, because that's what Bill is about - intentionally punning his way to a deeper life in Christ.

Can you guess what book he's punning on big time with the title of his website?

So anyway - leave my site right now, and go visit his. Do this so you can read my article on his website, and maybe get to know Bill and little too. So here's the article right HERE!

Thanks Bill.

Holy Sarcasm Batman!

Yesterday morning during our service at

The Vault

, or

The Gathering

, or whatever we call ourselves lately - we ended the service with some prayer for people who are having a difficult time making it through their struggles gracefully. I was numbered among the prayees, not the prayers, but most notable was Hank.

Hank openly admitted that he was struggling with going to church. I thought that it was wonderfully honest, and bold to go to church, and state that he didn't trust church. He still loves God, but he doesn't trust churches. I remarked rather matter of factly that he was in a room of people who understood. The place broke out in laughter, and beyond my expectation identified with Hank.

We tittered a bit about discovering that God and church weren't the same thing. We did pray for one another, but the moment of grace came in our laughter I think.

Could it be that there is a sanctified sarcasm which delivers us from the idolatry of thinking that man-made institutions are actually holy? Could the laughter have been more powerful than the prayer at that moment? I'm not really sure, because the prayer time was pretty cool as well, but certainly our laughter at the expense of some really messy church experiences was significantly holy.