Thank you for this, Anne. I am one of the "cowards" who walked away to form something new--the Global Methodist Church. When I saw Zoomer's tweet, I could not think of anything constructive or kind to say, so I kept my thoughts to myself. You have captured so well here what it feels like to enter into a community of people who are united in faith and in the Holy Spirit.
Thank you for the encouraging post, Anne. Your joy in voicing the creed with the faithful remnant resonates in my spirit (Psalm 122:1, also sometimes initiating Morning Prayer).
I’m unable to describe the joy of finding a congregation of real Christians; this sentence really resonated with my experience “for the first time in a long time, basks in the astonishing grace of being with other real Christians”.
This is so sad, yet so beautiful! If I were to print out a copy of today's blog, and highlight the parts I loved, the entire sheet would be wet with yellow highlighter ink.
As you were describing, Anne, the faithful Christian being released into the freedom of worshipping with other actual believers, this old Grateful Dead lyric (from Box of Rain) came to mind:
"Walk into splintered sunlight - Inch your way through dead dreams to another land"
Sometimes “Your Kingdom Come” seems so elusive—both in my personal life and in our corporate experience—that despair and hopelessness seem overwhelming. Another moral failure by a leader, a new heresy churning up confusion and controversy among His followers, another unkind word crossing my lips in the direction of someone I love, another failure to reach out to someone with a small act of kindness or encouragement or needed word of truth spoken in compassion, another time of pushing Him aside to pursue my own desires… How good of Him to stay with us through all our meandering and rebellion; to give us His Words in Scripture to remind us of what He has done for us; to give His Spirit to live(!) in us; and to give us encouragement from others who are walking this journey beside us.
I am beginning to suspect you find a certain glee in inflicting these horrible snippets of song and whatnot on your faithful readers. I had to listen to Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde in its entirety to purge that awfulness from my mind.
Thank you for this, Anne. I am one of the "cowards" who walked away to form something new--the Global Methodist Church. When I saw Zoomer's tweet, I could not think of anything constructive or kind to say, so I kept my thoughts to myself. You have captured so well here what it feels like to enter into a community of people who are united in faith and in the Holy Spirit.
Thank you for the encouraging post, Anne. Your joy in voicing the creed with the faithful remnant resonates in my spirit (Psalm 122:1, also sometimes initiating Morning Prayer).
I’m unable to describe the joy of finding a congregation of real Christians; this sentence really resonated with my experience “for the first time in a long time, basks in the astonishing grace of being with other real Christians”.
This is so sad, yet so beautiful! If I were to print out a copy of today's blog, and highlight the parts I loved, the entire sheet would be wet with yellow highlighter ink.
As you were describing, Anne, the faithful Christian being released into the freedom of worshipping with other actual believers, this old Grateful Dead lyric (from Box of Rain) came to mind:
"Walk into splintered sunlight - Inch your way through dead dreams to another land"
Sometimes “Your Kingdom Come” seems so elusive—both in my personal life and in our corporate experience—that despair and hopelessness seem overwhelming. Another moral failure by a leader, a new heresy churning up confusion and controversy among His followers, another unkind word crossing my lips in the direction of someone I love, another failure to reach out to someone with a small act of kindness or encouragement or needed word of truth spoken in compassion, another time of pushing Him aside to pursue my own desires… How good of Him to stay with us through all our meandering and rebellion; to give us His Words in Scripture to remind us of what He has done for us; to give His Spirit to live(!) in us; and to give us encouragement from others who are walking this journey beside us.
I am beginning to suspect you find a certain glee in inflicting these horrible snippets of song and whatnot on your faithful readers. I had to listen to Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde in its entirety to purge that awfulness from my mind.