Thinking About Holiness
August 25, 2008
I wouldn’t want to go into too much detail on this because it is truly sensitive and priviledged information. The volunteer staff and student leaders involved with our ministry are joining us for a two day training retreat at a private 24 bedroom log lodge next weekend. It is truly an experience and a reward for their loyalty. My question is, “Loyalty, to what?”
I do not want it to seem that I am somehow questioning their faith. I do not question these relationships at all. I am appreciative for their endless hours of service and sacrificial gifts of time and love. I suppose that I am actually questioning an emergent trend in the Church (western evangelical) today.
I have begun to read a book called “Looking for God”. I like much of what it says. I do not like the commitment to love however because, and I am begining to feel this is the problem with the emergent church culture, it so often comes at the expense of God’s holiness and our being bonded to service in Christ. Now before we get too far here, I admit that I have not finishd the book. I am in the process of writing a book myself, and I am often perturbed when someone reads and evaluates it based on the chapter that I am working on. I do not know where this book is leading.
Follow me on this tangent. I am witnessing a healthy commitment to small groups and to community in sub-urban churches. We have developed loving havens in the middle of our stormy lives. I have seen this development in our ministry. A person makes a commitment to the community because it meets their needs and it’s doing good stuff for God as well, right?
In our ministry we have noticed a trend toward mistaking love for tolerance. The result is that I have had too many volunteers and leaders minister while living their personal lives in the depths of rebellious sin. Sexual promiscuity, untruth, slander, gossip and the like. We have created a safe haven for sin. That was never Christ’s intention for HIs bride, “Come here and hide your filth undert the folds of my white wedding gown.”
Do not misundestand. I love each person. I am obligated to help them through their struggles. I just think that it may be due time for a little fear of God mixed in. Before I publish this however, I’m going to do a little self-evaluation. That will lead me to confession. From there I will through myself on God’s mercy in spite of my contentedness with living in a haven.
I think the harbour of God’s love is set very close to the open seas where the battles for my soul are waged.
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