Encircling the town green in Anytown, U.S.A. are the key components of a healthy, symbiotic, and whole community. You’ll find a library and a bank, the Town Hall and a general store. There’ll be a lodging house, a sheriff’s office, and a pub. There should also be a big, grand building with a steeple.
Governments have long made room on the green for a church and churches have long prized their position of importance in the community. But, should churches simply settle for being a pew for Joe Blow to sit in when he’s not on the barstool or in the reading room or at the teller’s window; part of a well-balanced meal for the modern mind? Ben Franklin loved Christianity because it made for good citizens. He saw it as a means to an end; a necessary component for the building a vibrant country. But the kingdom Christ established here on earth was intended to be an end in and of itself. Jesus wouldn’t be as interested in people going to church as He would be in seeing them being the church. The bone thrown to us this week is a little article written by our 26th President in a 1917 issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal. In it, Teddy Roosevelt gives his ten reasons for Americans to consider going to church. We’ll look to see which ones we agree with, which ones we don’t, and which ones are missing. I’m trusting there’s plenty of marrow in the bone – see you this Sunday morning!
Would you rather eat an orange, freshly picked from a citrus grove in Southern California or an orange-flavored piece of candy, picked up at the gas station? Both items look and taste kind of the same, but the effect each one has on the consumer couldn’t be more different. Both taste good, but only one is good for you. We tend to think of sophistication as a good thing. About an incomprehensible piece of modern art, we might say: “How sophisticated!” Of a university’s course offering in situational ethics, we might say: “How very brave. How very sophisticated!” We might even be persuaded to buy the world’s most sophisticated beverage: water-flavored water. For all the allure of sophistication and the envy it produces, its meaning and definition is not very attractive. To sophisticate something is to make it less natural or simple; to alter or pervert it in some way. It’s an old Middle English word derived from the Medieval Latin sophisticare, meaning to tamper with, disguise, or trick. In this week’s reading for our Sunday morning roundtable discussion, Desi Maxwell makes the case that much of modern Christianity is too sophisticated; more corn syrup than citrus. We’ll be challenged to shed the synthetic in pursuit of the authentic and to inventory our faith to see how much of our thought and practice has Christ’s trademark on it. Prepare to find your walk energized and your faith freed. See you Sunday morning!
