Acting In Faith

There is a small note taped to the bottom shelf of the bookshelves in my office, directly to the right of my chair, at about eye level when working at the desk, which simply states two things:

"I would rather act in faith and have to apologize, than to live a lifetime filled with regret for not having acted at all."

and
"No more apologizing for trying something new, different, or unusual in worship."

The first statement is a quote from someone, either Augustine, Bonhoeffer or Hammarskjold (I have a terrible memory that way!), and the second is a paraphrase of the first which was written when first I was introducing the concept of using technology in worship. That was a couple of years ago, but the sayings remain where first they were taped. They remain, not for prosperities sake but, for the sake of relevancy. It is still the way I feel in my call to ministry.

God did not create us to be timid in faithfulness. Christ did not save us to be irrelevant in the struggle. The Holy Spirit is not with us that faith be lived out in security.

In the midst of the hunger and thirst, in the presence of strangers among us, for those who are ill and imprisoned, where the naked huddle in the cold and the poor have little hope, God's people are called to be boldly at work . . . not making everyone Christian, but living Christ among all God's people. That is the call of Matthew 25.31ff. It is the bold premise of the kingdom of heaven breaking in among us. It is the character and integrity of faith's birth-waters gushing over the seaminess and political correctness of 'first being so sure you are right, that you do nothing at all'. It is the impassioned Judge separating the institutional church from the Body of Christ. It is the heart of our nature in response to God's life within us.

May our every attempt in service to the kingdom be found worthy in the sight of the Shepherd whose flocks we are called to tend, for it is in tending the flocks that His love is made manifest. It is in meeting their need for God that our deepest desires for God are fulfilled.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don