Faith Venture

Madeleine L’Engle remarked, “Sometimes the very walls of our churches separate us from God and each other. In our various naves and sanctuaries we are safely separated from those outside, from other denominations, other religions, separated from the poor, the ugly, the dying.…The house of God is not a safe place. It is a cross where time and eternity meet, and where we are – or should be – challenged to live more vulnerably, more interdependently.”

A popular bumper-sticker theology of the recent past—Churches are a hospital for sinners, not a clubhouse for saints.

I’m “attending” one of those modern churches—”a rock concert followed by a TED Talk.” But this one also has many ministries that reach out to poor people, prisoners, people in need in the US and in many locations in the world.

It’s not there yet, but it is attempting to be the place that sends people out equipped and encouraged to spread God’s love.

It’s OK to meet with people you like and sing some songs and pray together and be taught. But that is not where things begin and end. It’s an oasis for rest along the journey.

Anne Lamott told this story, “I heard an old man speak once, someone who had been sober for fifty years, a very prominent doctor. He said that he’d finally figured out a few years ago that his profound sense of control, in the world and over his life, is another addiction and a total illusion. He said that when he sees little kids sitting in the back seat of cars, in those car seats that have steering wheels, with grim expressions of concentration on their faces, clearly convinced that their efforts are causing the car to do whatever it is doing, he thinks of himself and his relationship with God: God who drives along silently, gently amused, in the real driver’s seat.”

Some of us have personalities that love control. We all know the control-freak bosses and teachers. They drive people like me, who are more of an independent type, crazy. These people, aka micro-managers, trust no one else to do a good job and tell us what and how to do everything. I can imagine them telling God the things he got wrong when he invented the universe.

Some people give up control. They let other people control their lives. They live in fear that they will be trampled by chaos, but they do not feel up to the responsibility and power to grab the reins and guide those horses. They look for someone strong to grab control.

One group won’t let God be in control; the other group doesn’t trust that God is in control.

God, however, doesn’t care what we think. He did start this whole thing moving and knows where it’s going. Trust that.