Only Wonder Understands

After modeling a seeker-sensitive approach to church growth for three decades, Willow Creek Community Church now plans to gear its weekend services toward mature believers seeking to grow in their faith.

The change comes on the heels of an ongoing four-year research effort first made public late last summer in Reveal: Where Are You?, a book coauthored by executive pastor Greg Hawkins. Hawkins said during an annual student ministries conference in April that Willow Creek would also replace its midweek services with classes on theology and the Bible.

Willow Creek’s ‘Huge Shift’ | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction.

 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

I am in the middle of reviewing a book from Paraclete Press titled “Praying In Color,” by Sybil MacBeth. Ms. Macbeth offers a way to visually connect with one’s prayers and/or lectio, offering the possibility of praying with the right side of the brain. It really isn’t about creating good art, but instead doodling one’s way to concentration and insite.

This picture represents some of my thoughts on the passage for this morning — 1 Corinthians 12: 1-11. I may continue to post whatever emerges in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you see some strange things.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

–Deuteronomy 6:4-9

The words above, known as the Shema, represents the center point around which all of the Jewish tradition revolves. This is the high call to our understanding of a single God to which we direct our worship. It is a call that the writer tells us should be close to our hearts, and should be at the center of our teaching.

The Jews praying at the Western Wall understood this. Many take the commandments to keep this teaching on them literally, putting on the phylacteries on the forehead as a reminder of the centrality of this teaching. It is understood that part of the call of faith is to ensure that the children of the community are raised up in this teaching. It is never to be forgotten.

So why is it that we are so relaxed about the central teachings of our faith in Christianity. We seem to know want to overburden anyone with too much knowledge, or practices that seem overly fanatical. Yes, we give lip service to the centrality of Jesus in our lives, but we aren’t especially diligent in reminding ourselves of that reality on a daily basis.

What would it look like for the church to take on the same level of passion and practice as the Orthodox at the Western Wall? Should we not approach our faith with the same passions and convictions as the faithful there . . . or for that matter the Muslims bowing five times daily before Allah? Have we allowed our culture to overwhelm our commitment to God expressed in Jesus Christ?

It’s almost 2:30 a.m. here in the US, but my is totally confused by where I am. Just a day or so ago, it would be out looking and searching for some exotic site in Israel with thoughts starting to drift toward lunch. Now I am sitting in my home office at 2:30 a.m., trying to clear the brain and make sense of it all.

So, since my brain isn’t clear enough to figure this all out, I will rather post a picture from Israel. Enjoy!

I find myself today in the internet cafe at the Notre Dame Guest House just outside the New Gate in Jerusalem. We began the day on the Mt. of Olives, walked to Gethsemane, and saw so many sites that I am on overload.

On our way down the hill, we stopped in a church that was built to commemorate Jesus’ weeping for Jerusalem. It was a pretty little church but I didn’t think much of it so I was walking around peering into corners when I looked in the Sacistry window, off limits to guests. Back there was a huge and very beautiful mosaic featuring the faces of Pope Paul and the Greek Metropolitan.

There was a brother present and I asked him if he would be willing to show us the mosaic. He agreed and took a couple of us into the sacistry. He explained that the mosaic, which showed faces of persons from all nations, had been commissioned following the meeting of the pope and the metropolitan, a meeting in which the pope had repented for the sins of the Roman Church and had gone toward rebuilding relationship between the two communions. “It was to be hung in the Church of All Nations (which sits at Gethsemane),” he said, “but they didn’t have room for it, so we asked if we could have it.”

What an amazing place it is that a historic mosaic can be found in the back changing room of the monks?

My knees are killing me, but I am experiencing a lot.

Yesterday, on our “sabbath day” during this pilgrimage, six of us went together and took a cab into the city of Tiberias. Located on the coast of the Sea of Galilee, Tiberias is an important city in Israel, having first been a center of Roman activity and then becoming a holy sight in Israel coinciding with the fall of Jerusalem. After the 1948 war, the Palestinian Arabas who occupied the city in the years since the fall of Jerusalem were forced out of the city and it is currently a hub of tourism for all of Israel. In fact, due to a post-passover holiday, the city was filled with Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish young men out to enjoy the water and party a bit.

Tiberias is thus a large city, busy like all large cities. Our goal in visiting was to see some sites, but to mainly walk around and try to catch a sense of the city.

About an hour after we arrived we were walking down one of the main shopping streets in the city. The road was lined with toy stores, candy chops, and advertisements for Nike and Adidas. Traffic was moving quickly in both directions, and the streets were full of early morning shoppers.

Suddenly, without warning, a wail rent through the skies. It was air raid sirens, wailing like the tornado warnings we receive in Nashville. We all looked at one another in panic, for only yesterday as we were along the Northern border with Lebanon, we heard about the Hezbollah rocket attacks two years earlier. Tiberias and the entire region of Galilee had been hit hard, and we wondered if these sirens signaled the beginning of another round of fighting.

But as we looked around, we were suprised to see no one moving. Everything in the city had stopped. People stood silently in the middle of the street. All of the traffic had stopped cold — even the delivery trucks which seemed to stop for no person. Business owners had come to their shop doors and windows, and everyone was standing silent in the fact of the sirens.

We had no clue what was happening. We wondered if this was how this people faced imminent danger. But after a couple of minutes the sirens stopped and began to go on about their business. Within 60 seconds all was back to normal.

We stopped a woman on the street. “Do you speak English,” we asked.

“A little, but not very well,” she replied.

“Can you explain what just happened?”

“It is Holocaust Remembrance Day” she said, quickly moving onto her other business.

We later learned that all through the country was a special remembrance of th Holocaust, and that sirens and silence had been a part of eveery major city. And then, after remembering that which we would rather forget, we honored the memory by embracing life.

This evening, as a bookend to the morning, I decided to attend the vespers service at the Church of the Multiplication here in Tabgha. I had attended the service led by the German Benedictines that run this place the day before, and found it very moving even though I didn’t understand a word of the German liturgy. If for no other reason, the light streaming into this church celebrating the feeding of the 5000 in the late afternoon is breathtaking.

Anyway, following the service, the brother who led the service took some time to speak with us and learn more about us (several of us had attended either morning prayer or vespers throughout the week, so there was a curiousity as to why we were there). It turned out that he was the Abbot of the Dormition Church in Jerusalem, but was serving for a year here in Tabgha.

“We are so glad you are here with us, but we need your prayers for this place,” he said. “We monks are always here and that is important, but this region needs the prayers of the entire church.”

He went on to share that his order, the German Association of the Benedictines, was working to facilitate peace in the region.

“We have a history with these people,” he said as the goosebumbs rose on his arms. “As you know, today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. We Germans have a special responsibility to the ministry of reconciliation in this place given that history.”

It was clear from the look on his face that these were not simply words, but a calling to something deeper. He truly believed that through the power of God and the power of prayer peace could indeed come to this land. And even though his forefathers had attempted to wipe out one of the players in the struggle, he was committed to righting the wrong and being and agent for reconciliation.

So pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Pray for the German Benedictines in Galilee. Pray that God may one day make this a haven of peace and celebration.