derekmaul

A view of The Church: “Messy. Impractical. Loved.”

– The “preacher spouse” craft project

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:12
– Rebekah speaking Jan 10

This past Wednesday, January 10, Rebekah shared a devotional at the beginning of our church covered-dish supper. The event was designed to kick off our 150th birthday celebration at Howard Memorial Presbyterian.

She used a meditation I had written several years ago, when we attended a “transitional ministry” conference together. It turns out that the words fit beautifully with this particular time and moment in the history of our church here in Tarboro.

It was titled: “Messy, impractical, loved.” I believe it is worth a read:

MESSY, IMPRACTICAL, LOVED

As a rule I’m not big on “Arts & Crafts”. I love art, I value creativity, and I appreciate imagination…. but the whole glue, construction paper, yarn and markers world does not nearly begin to work for yours truly.

– me, the instructors, and “the ladies”

But, sigh, sometimes a yarn and construction paper project is unavoidable. Such was the case when I took a “clergy-spouse” class at a Montreat conference Rebekah and I attended. The group comprised nine women (preachers’ wives), me, and two instructors.

The exercise – a yarn and glue and ribbons experience – was designed to illustrate the complexities of interrelated people and priorities and points-of-view and personalities and agendas and axes-to-grind that make up the typical church group-dynamic.

I immediately got the conversation somewhat off track when I said, “Wow, that’s really pretty!” But our very serious craft project was not supposed to be pretty, they told me, it was supposed to look complex, jumbled, disorganized and hard to unravel.

Complexity can be beautiful

– our church in Brandon

It was certainly all of that, but at the same time I felt the project (you can see it in the first image, above) was an awesome representation of how beautiful such complexities can be.

So I thought about the people back home in the Presbyterian Church where Rebekah and I served. You know:

  • the young families, the retirees, the middle aged, the teens, the young adults;
  • the conservative, the liberal, the reactionary, the moderate;
  • the socially active, the reclusive, the advocates for justice, the tea-party inclined;
  • the poor, the comfortable, the backs-to-the-wallers;
  • the fighters, the peace-makers;
  • the fearful, the generous, the healthy, the sick, the at-risk, the needy;
  • the people of all colors, the people who see no color;
  • the seekers, the believers, the convinced, the undecided;
  • those who feel at home, those who doubt, those who ask questions, those who know no answers;
  • the PhD, the grade-school drop-out, the laborer, the business owner;
  • the bankrupt, the flush;
  • the disillusioned, the confident;
  • the secure, the angry, the hurt, the grieving, the insensitive, the…
– worship in Wake Forest

Each and every one of them a sinner just like me. All standing in need of redemption. All standing in the presence of redemption. All coming together on a Sunday morning to worship in spirit and in truth.

And I felt so thankful for each one of them. You know, even Old So-and-So, and Sir Full-of-himself, and Squire Stick-in-the-Mud, and Mr. Pontificate, and Mrs. Think-like-me, and even Ms. Whine-a-lot.

– Praise service in Wake Forest

They are all (here we all are) the intricacy and the often anxious mess that speaks of the Kingdom of God, or at least our particular incarnation of the work in progress.

Oh they are certainly not easy, and sometimes they make life more difficult than beautiful, and other times they will move on to another community because we simply don’t/can’t/won’t measure up. But even that is alright, I guess.

It’s alright because that is exactly why we are here, exactly why we have been called into leadership. Not to make everyone feel comfortable or – God forbid – right. But to make us all aware that we do have a place; that we do have the confidence to stand in the presence of God, and to stand together.

To be a community of faith. To be Christ’s body.

Messy. Impractical. Loved.

In love, and because of love – DEREK

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