Parakalein

I am at a very unusual conference in Lansdale, PA.  It is not only the title that his unusual it is the setting, the openness, and the collective desire to set aside the pretense that is more like a pretext for not doing what the church is called to do.  What is the church called to do?  To be the church.  People called out of their human orientation to measure success or failure by numbers, profit, or applause.  The church is called to treat others as better than you.  So when someone fails, we are not to call them a failure.  When some one comes with a new idea or a new plan, we are not called to criticize or correct them but to listen and applaud their courage.  If we fail we fail miserably and grow and develop our hearts that do not condemn us to balance out the parts of us that do. If we succeed we succeed humbly and we grow by not taking but sharing the credit.  All others are better than me.  Really?  Really!

Not really but imagine if we all treated everyone as better than ourselves then everyone in the end would be feeling pretty good about themselves not because of managing success or failure but because they were with people without judgment and criticism but with mercy and kindness.

The great success of this conference after the first night is not in the numbers or the stories or the insights.  The great success is in the willingness to try a new adventure regardless of criticism or applause.  Their is no shame, no rejection, and no failure when the community of faith looks beyond the human measure of success and see God's measure.  People's lives touched and transformed by the simple and supernatural presence of God's peace and love in the hearts of the humble and the minds of the honorable.  They with God's help dream great visions and attempt great things.  They are reminded that the element of "great" is the God who is great is the one who calls us together to be the church to the 21st Century.

A new century demands bold new initiatives.  This is one.  I am glad I and a number of others from as far away as Australia have come to be together with only the agenda of being together in God's "judgment free zone" the true church.