What's Going On? Deep Hope (because we need it)
Having given so much of my life and energy to guiding and building up the church, and now being able to see the completion of my role in the almost near future, I can’t help but wonder about this thing we call the church. Is it working? Are we on track? Is this what Jesus meant us to be doing? Are there things we need to change? Are there things we’ve gotten wrong – even unintentionally?
I wonder about these things because I think the Jesus way of love and forgiveness is the most amazing way to live. I am convinced that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. But I also see an embarrassingly splintered one holy catholic church that often repels people more than attracting them and when it does attract, I am sometimes suspicious of the means, goal and content of that attraction.
Yet, the church has been going on for 2000 years all over the world with all kinds of people and cultures. The Spirit is at work!
So, in summary, I have huge questions and strong faith and it is sometimes hard to put them together. In the preaching series this fall I will attempt to share the struggles as well as confidence I have in a series I am calling “Deep Hope”. It is necessarily deep because these are not surface issues and it is hope because it is future oriented – we are still looking forward in faith.
Here is the plan for the series at this time:
· Deep Hope: reorienting our understanding of power. 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5.
· Deep Hope: moving beyond going to church and doing church to simply being the church. 1 Peter 2:4-10.
· Deep Hope: realizing that our beliefs are empty if they don’t shape our action. James 1:22-27; 2:14-19.
· Deep Hope: being thankful for the hope we have, albeit in jars of clay. 2 Corinthians 4:7-18.
· Deep Hope: humbly admitting that denominationalism is a horrible tragedy. 1 Corinthians 1:10-17.
· Deep Hope: that those of us self-described as “in the church” could learn from the parable of the older son. Luke 15:11-32.
I have not yet planned the concluding sermon for this series. My thought is to have an open conversation with anyone who wants to come out and talk. Perhaps we can together shape a way to state our collective Deep Hope. I seek your prayers for the preaching of God’s Word, as always.
Pastor Erick Schuringa