"dreaming of a church where..."

as a young church; we are constantly reading, listening, talking, exploring what other churches and leaders are doing to create the best community possible to love and minister to people. I'm currently reading Doug Pagitt's Church-Re-Imagined.

Doug is getting a lot of press these days; and is being branded a heretic by some. That's ridiculous. I've met Doug, had some great conversation with him, read and listened to a lot of his stuff. Bottom line for me--the man loves Jesus, loves people, and wants to help foster God's kingdom here and now. (I will not join the debate over Doug's theology--I tend to agree with a lot of what he says; but realize that those who don't aren't interested in conversation, just debate).

Anyway, in Church Re-Imagined, Doug starts off with a list of things that Solomon's Porch (Doug's church) desires to be..."We Dream of a Church Where..."

number one is "We listen to and are obedient to God"

I like it. One concern I have with a lot of evangelicals today is the idea that God is done speaking, and what needs to be communicated is their interpretation of what God said in the past. On that last point--we need to be very discerning and know there is often a difference between what God has said, and what people interpret God to have said.

I'll talk more about Scripture in the future, but for now let me say that it is obvious to me that the Bible is vibrant and alive and mysterious and scary and encouraging all at the same time. The more I know it, the more I realize I don't know it. I will spend the rest of my life wrestling with it and growing in it...But I do believe God has spoken through it in the past, does today, and will in the future--though not always in the ways we have learned or assumed.

I believe God is still speaking--through people, through His Spirit, through the events of our world, and through the Bible...While God himself may not change--our perceptions and understandings of Him do, as we grow and experience Him in different ways. We can't be obedient to God if we're not listening to Him in the now. I'm scared and excited that listening to God and being obedient to Him is an ongoing learning process; not something to be figured out and solved.