faithactionreconciliation

(the following is a blog I wrote for the SummerMadness website today, and I thought I'd throw it up on here, too. The preface is so you can read it in context of getting young people excited for serving in StreetReach.)

Right now I’m listening to a Rob Bell podcast, because I’m going to see him tomorrow night and thought I might just listen to a bit more of what he has to say. I really like the way he says “Jesus.” Maybe it’s his familiar-sounding Midwest-American accent. Or maybe I just like the way he emphasizes both syllables or something. But interestingly enough, Mr. Bell has inspired me about StreetReach, but also I was inspired about this idea of how to live a missional life.

He said this (regarding Moses giving the 10 commandments):

”But the people remained at a distance.”

This is probably geographical, but also metaphorical. We have been called to a divine task, and there is something within us that says, “I'm going to stay at a distance. You don't know, God, what I've done, you don't know who I've been with. I don't have the skills that that person has. I didn't grow up religious, so I'm just kinda clueless to all of this..."

…There is something deep within the bent sin-condition of a human being that we stand at a distance instead of stepping into our sacred calling to be priests and a set-apart people to save the world. Because that's God's plan.

I have high hopes for StreetReach, and what will happen in people’s gardens and hearts over the 5 day mission. But, truthfully, I have higher hopes for what might happen afterward, not so much in the gardens, but in the hearts. (Shall I make the seed analogy?) Let’s pray that we StreetReachers become missional in our lifestyles, not just in the way we radically serve for a few days in the summertime. Let’s name the fears and then scoot them to the side. What if we are in danger of becoming people who remain at a distance, though we’ve heard the call?

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They’re collecting for the bonfire already on the Lower Shankill, and it’s the hugest pile of junk and wood scraps I have ever seen. The other day, when it was pouring down rain, I was walking past the enormous lot of rubbish piling up. Getting absolutely soaked. And I felt that I had the modern day image in front of me of Elijah on Mount Carmel. Elijah and Ahab were having a competition to see who had the most powerful God. They both were to build altars of wood, but not set fire to them. The real God would lit fire to his own altar, essentially.

The remarkable thing is that our God, and Elijah’s God, set the pile of wood ablaze. But he did it after four large jars of water were poured on the altar—three times! And this is what God did,

Immediatey the fire of God fell and burned up the offering, the wood, the stones, the dirt, and even the water in the trench.

God does not just the impossible, but the impossibly impossible. I thought about that as I saw the mountains of wooden crates and couches getting ready for the bonfire on the Shankill. I’d imagine, too, that the more impossible it all seems (this standing up and not standing by stuff) the more chance God has in showing up in His power, not ours.

// posted by YWAM Belfast @ 1:26 p.m.