49. Out There

It is amazing what God is doing and saying through people all over this nation. every now and then you stumble on someones blog and you read their reflections about what they are involved in, what they see God doing, and what they see as being valuable and worth reproducing. It seems that God is unleashing a host of apostolic activity in America right now. Many of these voices are spread out and it is hard to connect the dots or even know where the dots are. It is a grass roots, bottom up thing, which tells me God is in charge of it and we are not.

Something I like about this movement is that it seems to be made up of people who despise "empire" styles of leadership. In other words, no one seems to want to control it, harness it or leverage it to build their own personal empire. It seems to be an empowerment movement. Some of this may be because the movement is being led from people with an apostolic gifting. We apostles hate doing the "pastor" thing. Don't stick us in the church cubicle, we need the wide open spaces of the frontier. We like the community, we just do not want to maintenance it.

I am thankful that these "new expressions" of christian community are surfacing. I often feel like there is not a place for me in the conventional style church. It is tough being on the fringe and not really having a support structure I also find it difficult to fit into my own faith heritage as well. The Church of Christ in my area seems so damn legalistic! There are definitely great Churches of Christ across the nation with a healthy theology, but for the most part, legalism seems to be the primary marker of the COC at this stage in the game It is sort of a double wammy, church expression and church tribe sort of put me out of reach for the time being.

It may sound like I am somewhat feeling sorry for myself. Honestly, sometimes I do sulk sulk and throw the pity party. The thing that keeps me on track is that I am on mission with the Father, and it is exactly where I want to be....out there on the fringe exploring the new frontier of apostolic activity.