Going to Church

Today I went to church at 1:30pm on a Saturday. There were only five people there including me. Only one person had a guitar and there were no song sheets or projected slides or anything. And we only sang two songs. There was no preacher, we just read 1 Cor 2 aloud about how the Holy Spirit brings to our minds the very mind of Jesus Christ. We talked about it for a few minutes. We noticed that things that had seemed stupid and worthless in the past had actually become very precious to us and we remarked at how good and wise the foolishness of God really is. Then we told each other what we were worried about and everybody prayed for everybody else. Then we ate some food together.

I went to church at 1:30pm on a Saturday. I didn't even know I was going to go to church when I woke up today. Neither did any of the other four people who were there. We didn't have time to print bulletins or plan an order of worship. We didn't take up an offering. But we did take care of each other.

I went to church at 1:30pm on a Saturday. In Abbye and Jeff's living room. I sat on the couch I'd slept on the night before with two old friends beside me.

I really like going to church. I like going on Sunday morning in the building north of town. But that's not enough... and here's the point... it's not supposed to be enough. Sunday morning is supposed to be insufficient.

"We loved you so much that we gave you not only God's Good News but our very lives as well."
1 Thessalonians 2:8

In the Studio...

...with Brian Mulder who is rocking my face off with an epic electric guitar part. We're working on the title track of Brian's new CD "Somewhere we're shining". We've been working all week since Brian and his brother Rob drove down from Holland, MI to visit and finish up some recording some tracks.

Here's a video.

Brian, Rob, and Matthew Recording from Brian Mulder on Vimeo.

Escapism vs. Baptism

I went on a great retreat a couple weekends ago with D. Merricks and the Ole Miss Wesley Foundation and the Arkansas Wesley around Little Rock. J.D. Walt was the retreat pastor and speaker. J.D.'s theme was "there are only two stories". Which is the theme of the Lenten/Spring Reader from Asbury Seminary this year. ( http://blogs.asburyseminary.edu/asbury-reader/start-here/ )

We are always trying to work our way UP, considering 'equality with God something to be grasped' but Jesus works his way DOWN to us 'not considering equality with God something to be grasped'. Those are the two stories and we live in one or the other, with either the mind of fallen Adam, or the mind of Christ.

Today though I've been thinking about Escapism vs. Baptism.

What's the difference? What kind of life do they bring respectively?

For myself, I'm seeing more and more that I want to preserve my controlled, familiar world and neglect dying to my self-preserving desires. I'd rather look out the window than be outside. (An example, actually, I had a great day out in the sun today.) It's easy then to end up with a fabricated pseudo-life wherein all the sensations of a real living committed movement and story are available without any of the actual attachments.

Entertainment can become escapism. I can get the feelings of adventure without the risks. I can save my life, but really I'm losing my life to meaninglessness and immobility.

I want to be Baptized. I want something real to happen to me. I want the legitimate hunger to be alive to be fed with the legitimate means of an actual life.

Even Jesus wanted to be baptized. And right after he was baptized he was tempted in the desert with the availability of escape from the pain and difficulty of real living. But he chose to walk forward in his baptism. Every day a baptism. And the result was life realized, good choices with actual meaning, living redemption.

What do you think about the comparison of Escapism vs. Baptism? What do you see?