What's Missing?

One of the things that I fear we lack most in the Christian Church is a sense of the need to be humble.  Last week I attended a preaching conference with the Episcopalian Church up at their retreat center (Kanuga) in Hendersonville, NC.  One of the presenters at this conference was Shane Hipps.  Now you may not know Shane by name, but indirectly you may.  For the past could of years Shane has been a pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI.  The same church that was founded by Rob Bell, who wrote the recent book Love Wins.  There were only about 55 attendees at the conference so we were actually able to talk to the speakers instead of just watch their presentation.  During one of the conversations Shane shared an interesting insight, he said, "The church is the sail, it is not the wind. It cannot control the wind but it needs the wind."  Now Shane's church is big.  They have thousands of people attend their services every week, they come from all over the world and their podcasts are heard by millions across the globe.  Even with all of this success and clout Shane understands the need to be humble.  He understands that his church is just a sail and it desperately needs the wind.  I wonder if the rest of the church understands this need to be humble?

I worry that we think we have it all figured out, that we have the market cornered and we have nothing left to learn.  Can we really put God, Jesus or Christianity into a box?

One of the themes that came out of the 16th century reformation was the need to be always reforming.  Not change just for the sake of changing but reforming so that the church can continually get closer to God.  Are we still reforming today?  What I think Shane was getting at with this wind and sail idea is that once in a while the church needs to get out of the way.  We need to remind ourselves that as important as we are and for all of the incredible things that we can do, we are not the wind but we vitally need the wind.  There is something freeing about that statement but it can also be very challenging.  When we remind ourselves that we are just the sail and Jesus is the wind we are admitting that we don't have control of the wind, we don't have the market cornered on this one and the wind will blow where it wants.  It will blow in directions that challenge us, it will blow in places where we don't want it to go but when this happens our faith grows and it grows because of our sense of humility.

Once in a while we need to humble ourselves so that God can continue to be God.  We need to remind ourselves that salvation does not come from the church but from Jesus and when we figure that out and we allow that wind to fill our sails we are able to do incredible things for the kingdom.

See you in church,

Chris