What If?

What if?
Returning to the Primal has not been easy. Decompressing after years of religious education and life can be a daunting task. It is always been easy just to coast. But when you coast, you find out if all your wheels are aligned. When I allow my Jeep to coast, there is an ever so slight pull to the right. I can switch lanes slowly just by taking my hands off the wheel.

Being in the drivers seat of a new start is scary enough, especially when you realize that if we begin to coast, we return to that which we have always done or known. Some one asked me earlier today “what makes us different?” after thinking through that and not being able to come up with a ground shaking answer, I realized something. I have no gimmick to push to the masses.

No tricks, no dog and pony show, no magic potent. What I bring to the table is not as opulent as others. It is not worthy of notice and will never make the front page of Churches are us. I am certainly not swell to look at, my words are not worthy of more than this blog, and the truth is, I am a little more than freaked out by this whole deal. Nothing in me is capable of leading a spelling bee much less, a church.

As my Father whispered in my ear, He reminded me what He is looking for. Not a fresh new dynamic speaker that will woo thousands into submission to following Jesus. There are plenty of those. Not some one whose oratory can mystify. Not an eloquent man who knows folks and can get things done. “Remember”, I hear…”what I desire is obedience”
So as we return to the Primal, all I bring to the gig is submission. A willingness to do what He says do, when He says do it, and a desire to follow.

The desire to latch on to that one thing that sets us apart is what gets us in trouble. Big church, big organ, big music ministry, big youth group, big children’s ministry. Exciting senior adult ministry. These things are what most churches sell as their deal. The bait that gets you there.

I have been in several churches…worked in 2 very large churches. What I have seen is they specialize in one thing and struggle with the rest. All the while folks leave because they are missing something. They never find what they are looking for, cause we mostly fail to look where the problem is…with in.

Fresh obedience is key to reclaiming the purpose of the church. We are so full of religious stuff and formulas that we cannot see that we need to deal with our inability to be obedient. We have filled the church with so much unneeded furniture and programs so people will stay and give, we miss the original point. Change the world.
We have gotten so bogged down in throwing rocks at Homosexuals and abortionists that love has become a sort of currency we use to make our selves feel like we are accomplishing something. But we have missed it.

What if…we missed it completely? Can we change? Can we restore the Primal love? Can we become once again what we were intended? Can we overcome so many years of us against them mentality?




Yep…He can