Refreshing Tension

What a weekend! Shaun and I were in Lancaster, PA for a family member's wedding. It was actually green there and cool. A huge shift from the Texas drought and wildfires. It was refreshing to say the least.

Time with family is refreshing. Usually. It can also be stressful at times. Our family has had it's ups and downs like most families. Even when there's frustrations though we love through it. I think about how loving people through the hard stuff makes for pretty intimate relationships. Something to remember when I want to bail from a tough time in the future.

Romans 5:3-4 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

As we flew from place to place this weekend and drove around, I was beginning my journey with the book, The Shaping of Things to Come by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. This book is going to be a much deeper dive into the missional church. I had a few feelings of frustration with the introduction of the book labeled, read this bit first. It's the tension between the established church and the organic, break the mold, incarnational church. I enjoy both. I love both. I'm involved in both. That's a tough tension.

I feel the tension but yet agree at the same time with the statements about starting over to establish a truly missional community, but at the same time I'm a Mission Director at an established church working with a congregation to turn our eyes outward into our community and the world. I have hope for our church. I see the fruit of missional living in families homes, neighborhoods and the apartment communities we are sending missionaries into.

I have hope.