Moat conscious

If you been around our church over the past seven weeks and participated in this year’s 40 days of prayer, by now you should, at the very least, be uneasily “cross the moat conscious”. Up to now you thought you were doing pretty good keeping it together on your island – staying out of trouble and on God’s good side, showing up to church more often than not, working at being a fairly decent person, keeping your house in order, staying off the employment line, paying your bills, all the while seeking out a social life.

But now you’re being told that that’s not enough! Now there’s a moat to cross with people out there on the other side – people you don’t particularly want to be bothered with or have time for – that need your help and need to be befriended by you! You want to yell, “Give me a break!” We get annoyed when we’re made to feel uneasy and suspect that change is coming. We may even dig our heals in and resist it.

Change

Something like this is going on in our church community. We thought this year’s Leap of Faith would be another fun time of believing and receiving like last year but instead we’re being subverted! Jesus words and his example have been sabotaging whatever self-centered, New York lifestyles we’re still holding on to. Suddenly “Cross That Moat” is more than a cool slogan, it’s a challenge that’s undermining our comfy way of living and daring us to enter into a process of change called a “paradigm shift”.

A paradigm shift is a change from one way of thinking about the world and life to another. It’s  actually more like a revolution that doesn’t just happen it’s more like we’re bushwhacked . We thought we were just fine, but surprise – using  an innocent six week community prayer experiment Jesus shows us we’re not.

Now we’re being challenged to change from being routinely occupied with our own lives to becoming “otherly” – intentional ‘moat crossers’ like Jesus was. This change will take a much longer time than six weeks and will require the ongoing internal work of the Spirit along with a willingness to participate in the continued practical efforts of our community to cross the moat together.

Moving forward

Leap of Faith was just the beginning of a process of change that, if we stick to it, will have an outward, otherly impact on the culture of our church community. Transforming us from being a nice comfortable church we attend into a force for good in our world.

So moving forward there are practical ways we’ll continue to cooperate with this subversion. We’re gonna continue to cross that moat together  connecting and serving the neighborhood our church is in and offering help to people who are taken for granted. We’ve scheduled some opportunities. They’re listed in the “Up Coming Events” column. I hope you’ll take advantage of these life-changing events.

God bless,

Mike T