Sunday Thoughts

I was really grumpy by the end of church today. The short-form, condensed, non-ranting reason is that... I'm already saved. And I feel like the last six weeks have all been the same sermon from a different text: "Get saved! It will be so great and such a relief and you'll finally feel complete. I know it's hard and scary, but you really need to do it. Today. So yeah, get saved."

I am all for preaching salvation! But if all we ever do at church is "get saved" then we never really get past figuring who is in and who is out of the kingdom, who is to blame when our prayers don't get answered even if we say Father God and Hallelujah and Blood of Jesus seven times each in all our prayers. Because maybe it's somebody who has been a member for 40 years and everyone thinks they're a Christian, but they just aren't quite. Witch hunt.

I am more interested to hear why Jesus seems so antagonistic toward his family sometimes, or to explore how we as a church measure up to the standards in the Bible - what are the rules we keep and don't keep? What are the reasons for those decisions? Let's take the Holy Spirit up on his offer of power and understanding - to move forward.

I was cranky because today was a day when church felt full of cliches, and those cliches aren't worthy of my life.

Jesus is though! And disliking (aspects of) church is always a great chance to chat with God about where I'm at and what I think and hopefully learn new things or remember old truths, and even the sucky parts aren't a waste.