Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada

Would your life be diminished in the absence of a relationship with Jesus Christ?"  I call this The Question.  It is the question we must ask our congregations as they prepare to open their doors to the community.  It is the question we must ask before we prepare anything in the welcoming realm. 

Some congregations will say 'no' or 'I'm not sure.'  Some will say 'let me think on that one.'  Many congregations are unable to put such a fine point on our purpose.  They want to build community, strengthen relationships, or be good people together.  All are wonderful and worthy aims.  They haven't spent much time pondering The Question.

Limp Bizkit, in their song "Take a Look Around," describes the world as a place that has seen too much hate - this world in which we live, breathe, love, cry and die.  A world where it's me against you, us against them, where he who yells loudest wins the precedent, where she who wields the largest weapon gains the right to become sovereign - for a day, a week, forever ...

A week prior to my holidays from the ministry in which I currently walk at The United Church in Meadowood, our family of faith was violated. Our building was broken into, damage occurred and things were stolen. As with many moments of distress and loss, it could have been much worse. That does not ignore the reality that any break-in, any theft, makes us feel vulnerable. It tempts us to want to dig in, retaliate, entrench - discern who is with us and who is against us ... temptations to adopt an agenda of what the band Soul Embraced calls the Shadow World.