January 22, 2012

# 654 Two Fishermen

And you, good Christians, one and all who’d follow Jesus’ way,
Come, leave behind what keeps you bound to trappings of our day,
And listen as he calls your name to come and follow near,
For still he speaks in varied ways to those his call will hear.
Leave all things you have and come and follow me.

To follow, one must, by definition, leave. You cannot stay where you are, and go. If you could, everybody would do it. To pick up, one must first lay down. To fill up your life, sometimes you must first empty it out.  Ouch.

I want to follow, I really do. But I won’t lie; there are things about my comfortable life that I really like --- habits, possessions, assumptions --- that would be tough to give up. Old dog new trick and all that.

But listen; Jesus still speaks, and Jesus still calls to those who will, “Follow.” Lord, I want to be in that number…

---Leigh Anne Armstrong

January 29, 2012

#718 --- Stir Your Church

Stir your church, O God, our Father, move throughout its life today;
Cultivate a sense of mission in our hearts and minds, we pray.
Help us to renew commitment to a way of ministry
Which interprets for our culture how your truth can make us free.

What do you think of when you hear the words ‘mission’ and ‘ministry’? Do you think of trips to faraway lands, projects with start and end dates, offerings taken up and sent to support professionals “in the field”? Do you think of gospel crusades, backyard Bible clubs, homeless ministries, clothing drives, food banks? Well, you’re right. Partly. All of these activities could be ministry activities. This hymn encourages us to look at the mission and ministry of the church in a new and different way, more holistic and encompassing, and maybe more Kingdom-nurturing. Milburn Price, in this text, challenges us to think of the way we live as God’s people in the world as ministry. We are to be interpreters in our culture of the foreign language of the freedom Christ brings, translators of the wholeness of Jesus in the brokenness of society.

The problem is, through our lives we, the church, will interpret something for the world around us. It can be freedom and wholeness. Or we can drop the ball, and we can interpret judgment, exclusivity, or indifference. Let’s choose freedom, and wholeness, and love.

---Leigh Anne Armstrong