ubi Christus, ibi ecclesia

"Where Christ is, there is the church."

-Ignatius of Antioch

I have heard many people say over the years, "I don't have to go to church to be a good Christian. I can read and study and pray on my own." I agree, but I also always wonder, Do you? I have met many people who have made this claim, but I have met few who actually DO read the Bible, study, and pray on their own. I think that's where Ignatius comes in.

Yes, because I believe that Christ is present outside the walls of the building, I believe that the church exists outside of the building that houses it. In fact, I believe sometimes the church is at its best outside of those walls.

However, isn't some recognition of Christ's presence important? What are we missing if we don't acknowledge it?

I wouldn't say that Christ isn't present with us unless we acknowledge it, but I will say that something is missing. I think the opportunity to witness to one another. The opportunity to celebrate the sacredness of a particular moment might pass by us if we don't stop to acknowledge and give thanks for Christ's presence in our midst.

15 people from NPC are currently training to run the ING Atlanta Full or 1/2 Marathon on March 21st, 2010. What's their motivation? Is it just to get out of going to worship? That might be part of it for some, but the real reason is much better:

To be the church.

One of my favorite passages in the Bible comes from Galatians, "Bear one another's burdens, and in this way, you fulfill the law of Christ," (6.2). I am convinced there are countless ways to live out that passage.

We have a young man in our congregation with Cystic Fibrosis. So fifteen of us are running in honor of him, raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Cystic Fibrosis Reaching Out Foundation. We are doing this through the 65 ROSES organization.

Over the next five months we will train, pray, challenge, and celebrate with one another on this journey. We will need encouragement and prayers. We will be reminded of what Paul wrote to the Philippians, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (4:13). To me it's a great way to be the church in the world.

And yet, I realize that I wouldn't know about this young man with CF unless they were part of our church, unless they came to worship and Sunday School and shared their story.

I guess I'm not sure why so many of the things we talk about with regard to the church have to be an either/or. You're either worried about your own members, or you're out in the world. We're complex people. Can't we do both?

One of the Many Reasons My Kids are the Coolest on the Planet

They get it from their mom.

I rarely blog about my family. (OK, I rarely blog at all.) But I don't like to talk about my family. You won't find thousands of pictures on my FB page. My sermons are not filled with "cute" illustrations about potty-training and messy meals. Pastors wonder why they live their lives under a microscope and then use personal family illustrations as object lessons for their congregations. You can't have it both ways.

My family is my business. They didn't ask to be included in what I do, so I respect who they are and the privacy they deserve.

That said, every now and then something happens that needs to be reflected on, proclaimed out loud and bragged about.

My oldest plays ice hockey. It is his passion. At his young age, he does not want to do anything else. No soccer. No baseball. Hockey. So in the middle of the summer in Georgia, we spend a good bit of time in the rink.

Last night his team won, 2-1. It was an exciting game, and the Goalie (A) played an amazing game, challenging shooters, glove saves, everything. Impressive stuff for a Mite team. My son played Defense, and even after a full day of hockey camp at another rink, he hustled like crazy. Protected his Goalie, used the boards, a couple breakaways up the ice and quick hustle back to his position.

After the game the coaches gave out 2 game pucks. One went to the player who scored the winning goal. The other went to my son. The coach puts a team sticker on the puck, and writes the player's name, date, and score on the other side. After my son received his puck, he licked his thumb and began rubbing off the writing. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, "I'm giving mine to A. He deserves it more than I do."

Let me tell you. In a world of instant gratification. In a world of WHAT DO I GET OUT OF THIS, I am amazingly proud of the spirit in this young man. And I am ridiculously hopeful for the man he is growing into.

They get it from their mom.

Ahhh! Remember when....

Remember the good old days? You know what I’m talking about. The days when Chick-Fil-A wasn’t the only place closed on Sundays. The days when soccer was only played in the fall and baseball was only played in the Spring. The days when there was only one kind of mail. It doesn’t matter how old you are. Each of us has our own definition of what those days looked like

We long for those days and choose to remember only the good parts of them. We tell ourselves stories of those days to comfort ourselves in this ever-changing environment. But the problem is that those stories don’t comfort us for long.

They don’t comfort us for long because in truth, we are telling ourselves the wrong stories. We tell ourselves bits and pieces of a history that may not have been as pretty as we remember. We choose to remember the parts that offer us comfort, but fail to recognize the parts that call us to account for who we are.

It happens all the time in countless ways. We talk about how cheap gasoline used to be but choose not to think about sitting in line in the 1970’s, or not being able to get gas at all because it was an even day and your license plate ended with a 9. We lament the ways technology has taken over our lives, but forget about what a pain it was to correct a mistyped a footnote at the bottom of a typed page.

I was in college during the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As we watched the commemorative specials a friend of mine watched with a little less interest than the rest. She later recounted how her grandparents, American Citizens of Japanese descent, were taken away to an internment camp, and how her mother was born in that camp.

The disciples, I’m sure, realizing how hard it was to be the church in the world longed for the simpler time when it was just them and Jesus. I wonder if any of them recounted arguing about who the best disciple was (Mark 9:33-37).

The world is changing. In 1970, the First Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta was run. It cost $2 to enter and there were 110 runners competing. This year there will be over 55,000 people running together on the 4th of July. Forget about the finishing times. It will be over 1 ½ hours between the time the first and last runner START the race.

The church is changing. We listen to sermons on-line from the comfort of our own homes. We welcome kids in soccer uniforms on Sunday mornings and seek ways to share the gospel in a world that doesn’t seem particularly interested.

The challenge we face is that we can no longer afford to long for the good old days. We might as well wish for the return of the abacus or the 8-track tape. We have to turn our heads and look forward.

What stories are you telling/being told that are holding you back?