Dear Pastors...

Let me tell you a story....  Once upon a time there was a little girl.  She was born into nothing - poor, broken, abused, devoid of education, devoid of morality.  She was a terror.  She was a monster of a human being.  She cursed and stole and got into fights.  She vandalized properties and sought to destroy relationships.  She was as unlovable as a person can be. 

But she was rescued.

She was taken out of her life and given a new life with beauty and potential.  She was adopted into a family that promised to love her and had everything.  They gave her a lovely bedroom.  Set up a college account.  Treated her kindly.  She had brothers and sisters who loved her deeply and cared for her.  They often stayed up late into the night talking, sharing stories, singing, and laughing.

Life was very good and the girl was never the same.  She was a new person... as if she had been born again.  The first time she was born into nothing.  Now she was born into everything.

She and her siblings dedicated themselves to learning the ways of the family - they wanted to live the best possible lives.  They practiced being good and using polite words.  They were kind to strangers and generous. 

The girl loved to talk to her father, but he was often out of town for work.  She would write to him and tell him all about her life - sharing her struggles and fears, her dreams about the future, her successes and her failures.  She knew that her father loved her unconditionally and that her life was going to be glorious. The girl longed to know her father more so that she could honor him and be a good reflection of her family.

While he was gone the girl's father left a very devoted friend in charge of the children.  The friend's job was simple: he was to help the children get to know their father.  The more the girl knew her father, the more she loved him and the more she became like him.

In his office her father left a set of journals about his life.  There were many of them, a small library that was the most accurate picture of him.  

Every night at dinner the friend would talk to the children about their father and the children would listen, taking in every word.  The friend often referred to the journals, even read segments of them.  He told the children to read the journals themselves and showed them on which shelf the books were kept.  The friend knew them well and had studied them.  The books were out of order on the shelf and the girl found herself intimidated.  She never knew where to start and where to end.  Sometimes she would just pick one up and read it, but she didn't know what had happened before or after.  It was a disjointed picture at best.

The girl decided she would not keep reading the journals because she felt lost whenever she walked into her father's office.  Instead she dedicated herself to listen to the stories the friend told at dinner.

Each night as the friend looked at the children he would get nervous about teaching them.  He would begin by mentioning their father and reading from the journals but often drifted into anecdotes about himself or other friends.  He told them that their father wanted them to live a certain way and the girl would try to live that way.  

Most nights the friend would remind the girl of the life she was originally born into.  He would talk about how much better things were since she had been adopted.  He told her she needed to try harder to be like the family and gave her helpful lists of how to act and what to do.

After a long time away the father came back.  The girl was so excited.  She showed him all the check lists and told him the ways she was striving to be like him.  She talked about the shame of her life before being adopted.  She had been working very very hard.

The father picked up his girl and kissed her cheek.  He knew how much she loved him.  But he was also grieved.  He had wanted his daughter to know him and to leave her old life behind.  He wanted her to live as if he was her natural father.  He wanted her to explore and play, to make friends and to learn.  He wanted her to be so saturated in his love and character that it grew into her being making her confident, daring, kind, generous and totally freed from her old life.  He found that the girl had many thoughts about him, but she had never read the journals.

The father went to his friend, "My daughter does not know me," he said.  The friend explained how he had read bits of the journal and shared anecdotes and given helpful lists so that she could know him better.

The father replied, "I gave you my story.  I left you my journals.  You knew them.  You had read them and studied them and were tasked with teaching my daughter about me.  Why does she know more about your story than she knows about mine?  Why didn't you teach her?  Why didn't you help her read and understand the journals I left for her?  They are my gift to her, that you were tasked with sharing, and she does not know me well."

....
On a radio quiz show the host asked one of the contestants, "Some churches have started offering what to attract people?"  The contestant said, "Well it wouldn't be God."  The audience laughed.

Why is it that the Bible is mentioned on Sunday mornings but it is not deeply studied from the pulpit?  Why is it that people who love God with their whole heart and want to follow him well do not know the Scriptures?

I wonder what would happen if sermons were different....  What if, when planning messages, we assumed that people will be church attending Christians for sixty years or more?  What if we acknowledge that most people will not (or cannot) come back to church for a Bible study group later in the week?  What if we utilized the 20+ minute message to really really study scripture?  What if we focused on knowing God rather than on managing our sin?  What if we painted pictures of Christ instead of spend the time looking at ourselves?

I am hungry for more....  I want more of Jesus.  I want more of the incredible book that has transformed the world. 

Most of all I want the Bride of Christ, the church, to be so saturated in His love and character that it grows into her being making her confident, daring, kind, generous, and totally freed from her old life. 

Freedom...
Life... abundantly!