Be what you recieve!

I have recieved the grace of Jesus. God's grace, His "one way love," has spoken over my life in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus has taken me over into the everlasting. And Jesus has shown me of whom I must listen. "The sheep hear my voice." Jesus has given me a new life, a new chance, relief from the slavery of my own encessant autobiography! He has turned water into wine. Jesus is so good. He resisted temptation. How did he do that? How did he go to the cross? I cannot imagine. But he went there didn't he. Or is it something we have made up? Is it something a bunch of religious freaks have branded onto the pages of history? Is it another myth amongst other myths? Is it true, real, and relevant?

My generation wrestles with these questions, and I am a generation X. But I have been changed inside of me. I have ben born from the inside out, cracked on the exterior, and the crack runs down through the middle of everything that I am.

I have been thinking about church order lately. Ecclesia. The church. What does it mean to be church? We talked many months about this while at Duke Divinity, but it never became a truly in-depth discussion. The professor waxed poetic, but I never had the chance to "think out loud" about the issues. As of right now I think I have moved from an individualistic model, to a authoritarian model, and now, to a shared and democratic model of church. I have bridged the gap between my baptist roots, my love of the catholic tradition, and my overwhelming sense that the Presbyterian model is a great juncture and meeting place of the two. In other words, my theology of church, or, my ecclisology has started to shift. In talking with my brother, who is a PCA pastor, and in listening to sermons by a mentor, Rankin Wilbourne, and in reading the word of God, I have started to question my understanding of how to best run a church and how to best describe and be a church.

Over the year I have started to believe in a more democratic, elder run session, over against a more Episcopate run diaconate and heirarchical style of leadership. To be frank, the model of the Anglican church and the Episcopal Church, flies in the face of my own upbringing. I am not saying that my upbringing is perfect. I am saying that I am most comfortable with the system of government found in democracy. I believe that human reason and logic always falls short, and that we are naturally turned towards our own ends, our own goals, and our own selfish desires. Four or five men will do a better job than one.

Theolically I have also shifted. Over this year I have seen God work miracles in my life. My wife was healed of cancer. My wife was taken from her job, which ends up being a mercy, in my opinion. I have been called back into full time ministry. All these things have been of the Lord's doing. I have nothing to do with any of them. I see nothing but the mysterious sovereign hand of Christ all over our life together. My reliance on God's mercy, my reliance on God's sovereignty, and my feeling of an inner and outer (total depravity) have become more and more real. It is a marvel to me that these outcomes have come about not by my efforts, but through God's grace.