Interesting thoughts...

Ron Degges, the President of the Disciples Home Mission writes:  "The Christian faith is always in danger of being routinized as is congregational life and the thought patterns of its followers. Routinization is believing and doing the same thing over and over again with the expectation that something different will occur. Each time we routinize the faith as it is embodied in the church and ourselves, we reduce the divine imperative to be fruitful and multiply. With fear, we measure out faith so carefully. We enviously count the number of cookies taken by our children and visitors at church fellowship events, lest they leave us empty handed, snatching either the faith or the cookies, and run away into oblivion.


I have some news for you. The faith and our cookies are not running away anywhere, especially to oblivion. Instead they are running to the hearts, minds, imaginations, and stomachs of all who desire to learn a new thing. In Christ, did not God do a new thing? When we as a people were choking to death on mere ritual and empty promises, did not God en-flesh Godself in our humanity? In life's brokenness, have we not become strong at our broken places because of God's love for us – all of us?

The time has come for us Christians and Disciples, I hope I got the order right, to follow the living Christ by amplifying, developing, and enlarging God's message of abundant love. There are more than enough cookies to go around. Let's stop abbreviating, abridging, and condensing God into our limited, confining, and routinized expressions of faith and action. If we do not, all we can expect is a lower grade God who will ping in our fuel tanks. Where is the octane? No, where are the cookies, please?

I attended an Independent Christian Church worship service this past weekend. The pastor said that "the church is the real roll back place, not Sam Walton's Walmart." It was God who rolled back the stone and it is God who will roll back the stones, no matter how large, that block our way to the timeless truth of the unroutinized gospel. The same pastor also said that "if you are hungry, eat, but don't expect the preacher to feed you all the time." Feed one another. I suspect that we've gotten ourselves into this routinized decline because we have not fed one another.

The word is not in the dictionary yet, as far as my sources of research indicate, but if it were, the word spiritfication would stand as the logical opposite to routinization. It would signify the Spirit-making and Spirit-producing power of a God who is always highest grade, of a God who breaks forth into the world, the church and each individual life opening them to life in all its abundance."

Great thoughts!!