new doors

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In another of my blogs, you might read about the church not being the building, but the people, and that perpetuating an institution is not the purpose of our spiritual journey. With that acknowledged, I want to reflect today about these beautiful new doors on our church: 

Last Sunday, we had our annual meeting, and I used a metaphor of the ebb and flow of the tides as a way to think about our discipleship and apostleship as Christians. We gather as a church body to be formed and transformed, supported and sustained, to be nurtured and fed. Then we are sent out into the world, empowered by the Spirit, to do those things for others, to carry the Gospel in our hearts into the world, and to help bring about that transformation we ourselves have experienced in the midst of our everyday lives. 

Certainly we could do that gathering-part in a park, on a beach, or under a public pavilion; One of my own communities-of-support gathers on phone calls, not even physically in one space.  And yet, we have the opportunity to be creative in building the space we gather in; we have the opportunity to bring to light the beauty of this life through an evolving artistic performance that spans generations. That is part of our collective offering, and not limited to a single perspective. It is an opportunity to be part of creating something that can draw others into relationship with God.



Even when I was involved in the start-up church in Houston, as we gathered in borrowed and shared spaces, we made sure to make the spaces beautiful, or to gather in beautiful spaces to begin with! The arts are a way for us to say thank you to God for the gifts we have been given. They are sacramental: making the inward and spiritual outward and visible. Gathering in a beautiful space draws the beauty God has made in each of us to the surface. 

 So, we have two beautiful new doors (not to mention the refinished 50-year-old-pews, and the new white vestments Judy Johnson made!) We have them because we are a church, and we meet in this beautiful space to worship God, to be transformed and nourished, and to be sent out again. The healthy ebb and flow, I hope, will continue to generate beauty in the church-building, and beauty in the world. God has made us each Beautiful, so we imitate and work alongside our creator when we also create beauty in the world around us. Thanks be to God for these beautiful spaces where we gather to worship; they are not the church, they are the church's offering of thanks, and the expressions of our experience of God's Beauty.

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