Forsaken!

Boo yeah

Community of Invitation

I was pondering today the church as a community of invitation. A community that follows the example of Jesus Christ by inviting people to something better. The words of Jesus to Peter and Andrew, "Come, be my disciples, and I will show you how to fish for people!" (Matt. 4:19) The response of Peter and Andrew to this invitation is one of obedience. They simply leave their nets and follow. A simple response to a seemingly simple invitation. There is also an invitation from Jesus to his disciples which invites them to partake of bread and wine. Another seemingly simple invitation that invites the disciples to something that is bigger than themselves. The response of the disciples is the simple act of obedience.

From what I can tell there is something profoundly power in this simple invitation. Christ invites people to himself in a very unhuman manner, it is an invitation from the other. Christ's invitation does not contain requirements. It is not, "Better yourself and follow me" or "Acknowledge your faults and follow me." Christ simply invites his disciples to follow him, to eat with him, to partake of something better and bigger than themselves. I think that there is something the church should glean from this.

I'm thinking the church probably needs to be a community of invitation. A community that invites people to dinner, to relationships, to the Body of Christ. Regardless of where people are at. Do we demand people to be perfect and then invite them? Or, is it after this invitation to this life that is better, that is more than the individual, that people encounter God and then learn of themselves? The gospel is profoundly good and perhaps we should spent more time inviting people to this, and I'm thinking this invitation probably looks a bit different than an altar call.

Oh the wonders of stuff

So lately I have been thinking. That isn't anything to special in itself. But what is special is the topic of my ponderings. I have been thinking a lot lately about obedience. Obedience to God, obedience to Christ who calls us to follow him. I have a feeling that we (Western Evangelicals) forget about this thing called obedience. We probably speak a little too much about faith, particularly personal faith. Now don't get me wrong I think faith is something that is important, in fact necessary, but I think obedience is also necessary. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it sort of like this....

We often talk about the faithful being obedient but we need to remember that it is also the obedient who are faithful.

To say that obedience is simply a byproduct of faith seems to miss a large part of the gospels. I don't know. There are much wiser people who have thought about this and written on it. I look forward to reading more and studying more about this.

Old Maurice

Man, do I love Paul Maurice. What a classy coach. He clearly puts his heart into coaching. The Leafs are lucky to have him.