We Want God to Attend Second Mile

I read a great blog post by James MacDonald regarding the book he’s writing (tentatively called “When God Goes to Church”). His thesis is that God doesn’t attend many American churches because “His Word is apologized for, His Son is polished and marketed, and His power is not sought in prayer or even anticipated.” I’ve thought about this and realize how devastating it would be if we had church that God wouldn’t want to be part of because we felt like we could do it on our own. May it never be!

MacDonald continues:

I heard a pastor say recently that the past 20 years have been about “church done with excellence in the flesh is better than church done poorly in the flesh.” How insightful! How about church done according to God’s Word and in the power of the Spirit? How about church on fire, led by men on fire, burning a swath of God’s power across our land like a tornado across a Kansas wheat field? Where is the mighty prevailing church (Matthew 16:18) moving with God’s power, seeing lives transformed frequently and totally? Where is the church that sees miraculous answers to prayer and marvelous interventions of grace? I want to spend the rest of my days working to see the true church, the grace and truth church, (John 1:14) the spirit and power church, the overcoming, Christ-adoring, prayerfully dependant, Word-proclaiming church return to prominence. I believe it is only then that God will begin regularly attending the churches of our land. If that were to happen it would make ALL the difference, would it not?

Pray that Second Mile would be a church where God doesn’t just attend, but where he does manifest miraculous answers to prayer and marvelous interventions of grace.

Celebrating (But Never Demanding) God’s Blessing

God has, once again, blessed my family above and beyond what we could imagine. One of the most significant commitments we’ve made to starting Second Mile is moving into the community. Within three days we had multiple offers on our house and within seven days it was sold. Amazing. I know people who have had their house for sale for almost a year, and ours sold in a week.

Then, while we’ve been homeless, we’ve had the joy of living with our friends Charlie and Bonnie in their basement. It’s a beautiful home with plenty of room and their hospitality has been out-of-this-world. In the meantime, we’ve looked at 25+ homes (almost all of which were short-sales and big-hassles). We offered on three homes that we liked and then it was time to wait. All three were good and one was exactly what we wanted (so we had our prayer team pray that God would provide it).

Well, 6-8 weeks later (while we were still waiting), a new house popped on the market that was a regular sale and, though another person offered $12k more than us, our offer was accepted the first day. Amazingly, this house was even better than the one we had asked everyone to pray for and, ironically, they back up to each other. Today we signed the papers, we get keys Friday, and we move in a week. We are thrilled.

It’s funny…but I don’t know totally how to react to all of this. While the Scripture does say that God sometimes gives us more than we ask or think (Eph 3:20) and that he is a generous Father who loves to give good gifts to his children when they ask (Mt 7:11), I am also aware that I don’t even deserve a house, nor am I owed anything by God. I have never given a gift to God that he should repay me (Ro 11:35). I think the reaction that God wants is for me to enjoy his gifts and to delight in the love of the Giver.

But what has troubled me more than once are the comments that some Christians have made when I have told them this story. They’ll say something like, “Well of course God did that for you” or “What else did you expect?” I think when they say this they are simply trying to celebrate God’s generosity. But I also wonder whether these comments carry the assumption that God must bless me in these temporal ways. God may not always provide the temporal blessings I hope for. I know that there are Christians tonight across the world who have zero temporal comfort and God loves them just as much as me.

In conclusion, this experience has taught me to celebrate the blessings of God and to enjoy them, but also to never demand or presume that I must have them. I have Jesus. He is more blessing than I will ever get my arms around and I want him to be enough.

Depending on Jesus

It doesn’t take long in the process of starting a new church before you realize how much work there is to be done. Even when you have a great and growing team of people helping, like we have with Second Mile, there is still much to do (things like gathering people, raising money, securing facilities, ironing out details, etc.). Most of the time, I’m finding it to be fun and rewarding.

Today I came across this Jerry Bridges quote over at “Of First Importance” and it was a good reminder of the reality that all this work must be done in complete dependence on God rather than self-reliance in order to really honor Christ:

“Faith in Christ and a reliance on ourselves, even to the smallest degree, are mutually exclusive.”

Anytime we do this work in our own strength, relying only on what we can see and touch and feel, we become practical atheists. May this church be birthed and grown through a rock-solid faith in Christ that depends fully on him.