Over a year ago I had a dream. In the dream I was shown a root-bound plant in a 4-inch plastic container. The plant, however, was so root-bound that it would soon need to be taken out of its four walls, have its roots broken apart, and placed in bigger, richer ground OR it could stay where it was and risk strangling to death inside its four walls.
Ever since that time I've been thinking about that dream in a spititual sense and what it means... We can spend every Sunday going to church, being spiritually fed, and growing inside the four walls of our church, but there comes a day when you discover that you need to spread your spiritual roots further than the confines of the church's walls. You need to take what you learned, what has fed you, and caused you to grow so well, and take it outside those four walls to bigger ground. To new places.
This dream has made me dream of "a church without walls" and what that means. I see "church" being taken to those places where there isn't church. To places and people that can't, don't, or won't go to church. To people in nursing homes, to shut-ins, to kids hanging out at the park, to homeless people sitting downtown, to people in restaurants and stores...Sharing the "food"--the Bread of Life--that has caused me to grow so much...
This "Crazy Idea" to share Jesus outside the four walls of church doesn't seem so crazy to me anymore. I even find myself doing it. Sharing God's truths with people where I work, praying for people in Lowe's and at Perkins. And I'm now finding others who believe in taking "church" to people outside those sacred walls. They're doing it. They're going into homes to minister. Even to karaoke contests in bars. Isn't that what Jesus did? Share his Father and Himself with those who were lost and hurting? And in places you wouldn't always expect? Isn't that what we should do?
"Crazy Idea" verified.
No comments:
Post a Comment