Is The Fact I’m Trying To Do It For Ya Doin’ It For Ya?

Okay, I’m not sure if it’s the heat…

…or if it’s vacation time…

…or if my topics are uninteresting…

…or if folks thought The Diner was closed because of my trip to Holland…

But I really thought the dining table entry would’ve gotten more dialogue going.

So, I’m trying again. More from Eugene Peterson’s book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.

How’s this for starters?

“I didn’t come to the conviction easily, but finally there was no getting around it: there can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life apart from an immersion and embrace of community. I am not myself by myself. Community, not the highly vaunted individualism of our culture, I sthe setting which Christ is at play.”

Not doing it? How about this:

“What does this mean? It means we have to revise our ideas of the holy community to conform to what is revealed in Scripture. It means we cannot impose our paradisiacal visions of hanging out with lovely, upbeat, beautiful people when we enter a Christian congregation. It means that God’s way of working with us in community has virtually nothing to do with the world’s idea of getting things done, of what ‘works’ and what doesn’t. It means God hasn’t changed his modus operandi of choosing the ‘low and despised of the world’ to form his community. It means that we who want to get in on what God does in the way God does it in all matters of community, will have to give up pretensions of shaping an organization that the world will think is wonderful as we parade our accomplishments to the tune of ‘worship’ or ‘evangelism.’”

Well, if that doesn’t do it, I’ve got one more:

“Cliches are the usual verbal giveaways of prayer that is, in fact, non-prayer.”

*sets up coffee tables; makes the coffee, and waits*