Good problem to have

Hillcrest is a week away from our first Wednesday Night Service (the idea is that our church will serve out in the community every Wednesday evening. And by church we mean everyone- children, students, and adults. And by every Wednesday everning we mean every Wednesday evening, meaning there's no more midweek programs except for this one). My personal range of thoughts and emotions about this service has come full circle. About a month ago, I was internally worried that this thing would flop, that I would botch the communication of it, that people who weren’t in the know would be upset, and that we might open a can of worms that would lead to other issues that would get us off the path. All of that changed within the last couple of weeks as Pastor Doug has delivered tremendous messages not only clearly communicating the Wednesday Night Service, but further defining the nature and direction of Hillcrest (we were reminded of the importance of continually to clearly and publicly communicate who we are as a church when Aaron and Shauna were here). So after Doug's messages, there is a positive buzz about the service and most of the spots (104 to date) are filled for our first one on the 20th- which has now led to a completely different set of issues that I am internally dealing with. With the response I now worry if we won’t have enough to do, if people will end up standing around, if our community partners aren’t prepared for us or botch it for us, etc. I understand how highly critical or negative these thoughts are and yet I am continuing to pray for God’s work through all of this and that this service continues to lead us and our community closer to Jesus.

I’ve begun to read McLaren’s New Kind of Christian this morning and can tell I’m going to like the book. I’ve read more of McLaren’s recent stuff (Secret Message of Jesus, Everything Must Change, etc) and kind of missed on his new kind of Christian trilogy. I’m reading it partly to join a conversation that will probably be close to finishing once I am done with the book and partly to continue to read from different angles that affirm my own thoughts and perspective and also challenge me as well. It promised to be an interesting and engaging read.

I also read the first part of 1 Corinthians 15 this morning and am amazed at the time and detail that Paul spends on the resurrection, basically claiming that if the resurrection has not happened, our faith is worthless (apparently there was some local issue concerning the actual nature of the resurrection of the body not realizing that if our bodies aren’t resurrected, than Christ’s can’t be resurrected either and than our faith is done, kind of a snowball effect). It’s an important point because as much time as we like to spend on Jesus’ crucifixion and the penalty paid for our sins (the bad part, the part that elevates the guilt in our life) we sometimes overlook or take for granted the idea that Jesus rose from the dead, (the hopeful part that is supposed to give us hope and grant us permission to live a different kind of life on this earth).