We Need more Cowbell (i.e. vision)

I know, I need to do a "real" post, but you will have to settle with this. These are thoughts for this week's sermon based on Ephesians 4:1-7. It is based heavely on Bullard's Life-cycle of a church.

MAIN IDEA – It is easy to fall into a routine and forget why I am doing what I am doing. It is easy to find myself just going through the daily motions and not thinking about the reasons. With prayer it is easy. With preaching it is easy. With my presence it is easy, and things start to die. This is very true and very real for the church. It is easy for churches to focus so much and keeping things going that people in churches tend to forget why they formed in the first place. They tend to forget what it is that gathers them together and the church starts to die.

This stupor and atrophy occurs with individuals, with institutions, and with movements and often we don’t notice it until it is to late. At those points people tend to panic, people tend to worry and go for safe, easy maintenance of faith and actions. Homogeneity tends to be favored over diversity. Conservative tends to be favored over creativity. It is a scary situation for many, and diversity only adds to the fear. In my faith, I have calmed down my passion to protect my profession. I have quieted things and it may be to the point where returning to that passion I had would cause so much shock as to scare me and all those around me.

I have been called into the one hope of my calling. I have been embraced by the Spirit, and I should not have any fear to live my passion and my faith. The church has been called and should not fear. We have been called and should not fear.

Remind us of our calling, Lord. Remind us of the ways in which you have blessed us, the passion we had in you, the relationships we find through you, and the changes we live in you. Remind us and then give us the strength to reclaim that one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. Amen

THEOLOGICAL IDEA – Unity in the church is always a difficult thing to embrace. The passage suggesting one Lord, faith, and baptism offers something to embrace. In fact, it may be just enough to embrace. The particulars of interpretation, ecclesiology, etc., need to have a breadth of diversity within and among churches. There is always the danger of creeds and there is always the danger of relativity.