Lost in Faith

Communion at Shoal Creek has become one of my favorite experiences.  Growing up in church I never understood what communion was all about.  All of sudden everybody would be really serious for few minutes, eat bread, drink really weak grape juice and then things would get back to normal. So when I think of giving directional leadership to a church and believe that Jesus longed for us to celebrate this ritual, I shuddered.  But God provided some teammates that brought this experience from the bottom of my list to the top using their creativity and insight to the spiritual life. Just as Jerusalem has the Stations of the Cross, we have different stations at each Celebraton to encourage a vital connection with God during the experience.  This past week we had six different stations

1. Dinner Table
2. Toilet
3. Window
4. Wheel Barrow
5. Banner
6. Bread and wine

The theme found it’s orgin from Brennan Manning’s Ragamuffin Gospel.  He uses metaphors that we keyed off of to drive people to experience God.   

The first was a dinner table.  The image conjurers an evening of grateful diners enjoying an atmosphere laced with grace.  It is the table of the Messiah of Grace built for prostitutes and chief executives, for terrorist and tree huggers, outcast and up and outters.  It is a place for the most unlikely to come and feel the touch of a God who “once for all” screamed to eternity that “YOU” are of infinite worth to Him.  We asked people to look, walk, sit around the table and contemplate those who they wanted to have a seat that table.  They were provided place cards and writing utensils so they could make a place card for a spouse, friend, co-worker or neighbor. 

The toilet (which by the way was in use a week ago!) was backdropped by a waterfall.  Manning aptly describes how we “huff and puff to impress God, thrashing about trying to fix ourselves all the while wallowing in guilt that is nauseating to God and a flat denial of the gospel of grace.”  The pairing of the fresh clean water of a waterfall that endlessly produces the fresh, free and constant fall of water.  This is GRACE, it flow like rain!  But adjacent to a toilet, water that is disgusting.  We long to stand under the waterfall and feel the power and freshness yet we regurgitate at having to put our hand in the toilet water.  Why do leave nearer the toilet than the waterfall!  The experience of Grace and Guilt at like the two pictures.  So we ask people to write, journal on cards about their stubborn independence they are trying to fix in their lives.  After writing we asked them to drop them into the toilet!  The space around the toilet became a confessional and the sobs and sighs of repentance were audible. 

The window was across the room.  Manning tells a story of a young boy who runs back into his burning house and after a few frantic moments appears in the window of his bedroom.  Trapped and now his only escape is to jump.  His father yells to him, “JUMP!”  He replies that he can’t see his father.  The father says that’s okay, “I can see you!”  

The fourth metaphor was a wheel barrow.  The Manning references the classic story of the tightrope artist who pushes his assistant across a great chasm in a wheel barrow.  Once on the other side a gentle men was asked, “Do you think I can do it again?” To which he replied, “YES!”  The acrobat looks at him and says, “Jump in and I’ll take you across.”

Here we asked people to consider if they were willing to trust all that Jesus wants to be to them and for them.  Were they willing to give more than mental assent and believe that He wants all of them?

The fifth experience was a banner that highlighted the truth that God’s love is the SAME yesterday, today and tomorrow.  Manning masterfully treats Paul hymn of God constant unwavering devotion to those He loves.  NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD because Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.  After allowing that truth to wash down deeply, we asked people to write the word SAME in between the words “The love of Christ is the …. yesterday, today and tomorrow.  We asked them review their lives and those areas where they defy God’s love believing that He doesn’t love them.  We asked them to consider why the feel more omnipotent than God.  He declares his love never fails and they scream back “Yes it does, when I …..” 

As a founder of a church, I just thought how painful it would be for me not to be able to do what I do where I do it.  I can’t imagine the pain on not be able to be here and do what I do.)

Well that’s brief view of what you missed on Wednesday, April 18^th @ Shoal Creek.
Roy

* A thin place is where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted and one is able to receive a glimpse of the glory of God. A contemporary poet Sharlande Sledge gives this description.
“Thin places,” the Celts call this space,
Both seen and unseen,
Where the door between the world
And the next is cracked open for a moment
And the light is not all on the other side.
God shaped space. Holy. 

Sharlande Sledge, “Thin Places.” Nonpublished