The Puzzle

My kids have been mesmerized by the miracle of the jigsaw puzzle lately. Our house is decorated by a scattering of Spiderman, Strawberry Short Cake and Dora the Explorer puzzles. They are amazed by their new found ability to assemble the pieces of a puzzle into the picture on the box.

I feel like our life has been like that lately. People always email and call saying, "so what is it your doing? What's this all about?" And I have to go talk to the East Tennessee D.S. this week and explain the same thing. The truth is, its a puzzle. The pieces are all scattered around and we are just not sure how they will fit together. Creative worship elements that we used in our prayer stations are one piece. They were fantastic and helped, not only adults and teens, but even our children connect with God in new and exciting ways. Story telling, object lessons, participatory worship is another puzzle piece. And even though I don't ever plan to be on any kind of platform (stage) again, it seems that teaching (even preaching?) is a gift I cannot ignore or assume has no purpose in my life.

A third piece is our fascination with house churches (or at least my fascination). The truth is we have never been to one as a family although I had visited one with newly saved friends as a teen. I visited that church very reluctantly while I still partied and was getting into trouble. Some friends of mine who were car-hoppers (guys who went around stealing whatever they could from unlocked cars) and drug users. They walked up one day and said, "we got saved!". We looked at them strangely but could not deny the incredible change that came over all of them. They invited and invited until I agreed to attend this house church. I only remember sitting in a little apartment that was so crowded with folding chairs that the back of mine was pressed up against the front door. And I remember the prayer which I believed, even at that time of rebellion, that it was a message right to my heart from the lips of God warning me of the certainty of spiritual death had I chosen to continue on my path. I have never forgotten that intense moment. Since then, I have come to understand the kind of church structure that changed the world in the New Testament was very different from what we call "church" in the Western world today. Of all the different movements I have looked at, it seems the freedom and intimacy that house churches produce is most faithful to a New Testament understanding of "Church". What the house church folks are fond of saying (and I agree with totally) is that the "Church" is wherever two or three are gathered be it on a park bench, over a cup of coffee or in a room with worship music playing.

A fourth piece of the puzzle is our desire to connect with GenXers or following generations who are looking for something real and intense in a relationship with God. They are just not finding it in our traditional churches or the "new fab" contemporary churches that are "seeker sensitive" or trying to be so "culturally relevant". Following Jesus means that you can't be relevant to everyone. Jesus hand picked a small group of disciples as an inner-circle. He explained things to the culture that they couldn't possibly understand and would only provide in-depth explanation to his little inner-circle. Yes, he ate with sinners and was in their world, but he was never "of" that world. He always freaked them out and called them to something more! I have a desire to be in the world, walk, work and live alongside people who don't know Jesus. But I always want to freak them out with excessive love, compassion, caring, giving, and being. If they see my life and think, "he's one of us", then I missed the whole point of Christlike living. Today's generations are not fooled by religious churchy folk who want to carbon copy others but neither are they fooled by pseudo-christians who curse, party, and listen to vulgar anti-Christian music just to be accepted by non-Christians. (oops got off on a soap box, sorry....well, not really sorry:)

Finally, (and I probably missed one) there is the worship music. Christy and I have found such joy with a simpler form of worship music than we are used to. Now don't panic, we are not anti-hymn people! But lately we have been worshipping with music that has the sound of folk but the words are simply Psalms set to acoustic music (acoustic guitar, other strings and hand drums-no drum kits or electric stuff). Its a very inclusive, 'world-music' sound that is very awesome and seems like it will have its place somehow.

Other pieces? The Smoky Mountains? The East Tennessee District of the Church of the Nazarene? Denso Manufacturing? Nebo Mountain? Who knows! We have no idea how these pieces may or may not fit together. We don't know if there are pieces that are not yet revealed or that we have not recognized at this moment. Right now the puzzle is laying scattered on the coffee table of God's throne room and He's smiling.