Words from some guy named Jeff Woods…
“The church has sought to guide the spiritual lives of its members in very practical, reasonable ways.
That sounds like a compliment. It’s not.
Contrary to Western thought, spirituality is anything but reasonable and practical.”
Thoughts? Commentary? Confusion?
That makes sense – the part about not making sense. We would love for it to be black and white wouldn’t we? Or would we? Come on J – stop talking in circles and give us some solid answers already – just tell us what to do and we’ll do it! Ok – if not, I’ll just wander and wonder along with you if that’s all right – I think I might like the mystery just as much anyway.
hey cheif,
that’s cool. i agree with his final sentence, that Christianity is anything but reasonable and practical. at least it should be. i mean, it’s like what that one dude said, John Wesley, i think that you quoted in your sermon the other day, ‘give me 100 Christians who fear nothing but sin and want to serve nothing but Christ and we can change the world’, or something like that. that kind of says to me that we aren’t really living the Christian life the way it is supposed to be lived.
i am not very reasonable or practical. i bought a house for my dog. not so practical. and mostly i am a jerk and want things done my way. not very reasonable. i suppose that’s not what jeff woods had in mind when he wrote this, huh? i’ll work at extending my unresonableness and unpracticalness to more christlike things…sorry, i can’t leave my stupidity at the door…of the internet…i didn’t know the internet had a door…did you?
I would agree with the last statement. Every time I think I get spirituality pounded down in my nice and neat box, something comes up and *poof* the contents are all over the floor again. Its like God doesn’t want me to understand… Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I’ve met some very interesting ppl in my life recently at my new job (btw I got a new job at a programming shop called 2020its. http://www.2020its.com ) and I look at these ppl who beg the question to be asked: Would they be welcomed in our church if everyone knew their entire life story?
Most times out of 10 we would say yes, but there is one particular person who I would have to think about… (that’s the part spilling out of the box you see…)
So Is it just humility He wants or something more? Or worse… is there something He wants me to do about it?
My own faith is a simple one where there is just simple things in my life to deal with… When I add a second or third person to the picture, it starts to get more difficult to focus on the picture. And we are social creatures. So I am agreeing with the fact that it is hard and difficult to fix into the practical format.