God moves you from the back to the front.
January 22nd, 2010The first part of January, my wife and I travelled to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to participate in a meeting regarding the vertical church in a horizontal world. Very interesting and uplifting stuff, not to mention a good time with friends…from California…go figure. The meeting was hosted by Elder Spell & Pastor Tony Spell, and they were great southern hospitality hosts with all the fixin’s (gumbo, catfish,…and other Cajun stuffs).
The content of the sessions was uplifting, as it centered on how the church should be centered on the vertical, unseen, transcendent world and not on the seen horizontal palette.
On a personal note, there’s a lot of ideas floating around about how the church should be reaching the world, and I’ve never been one to close the door on new ways the church can connect to an ever changing community. However, I am very concerned when the ever changing community dictates to the church, so that the church becomes an ever changing church (my “journey”, if you will, has been like that of the large vehicle in reverse with the warning beeps). Core values and identity cannot be sacrificed…and in my experience, a rush to be “authentic” results in being faddish (ok, some things are cool) and tends to eliminate that which is really authentic (that’s not so cool). It is one thing to reach forward with a firm commitment and appreciation for what has brought the church thus far (that becomes in and of itself a check and balance), but it is quite another to self loathe and de-construct what “has been” in an effort to become something the church is not, or will cease to be when “new fangled” wears off and in sets buyer’s remorse. And by the way, this is not a new thing, rather, a cycle of 20 years as it pertains to inward organizational structures, and centuries as it pertains to broad epochal history. Nuff said…I am not so arrogant to pretend to have all the answers, but this one thing I do know, if we start de-constructing the last 65 years of GBFPC in the Greater Bakersfield area we will implode. The New Birth message works, and response to it brings in folk like Richard Ross.
1 Cor 6:11
And such were some of you : but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.KJV
This has to be one of the most powerful verses in the Bible. Richard has turned a 180, and is doing fantastic. So you can imagine my thoughts upon receiving the picture below.
I’m thinking, “Oh, No!” Then, a few minutes later I received the next picture.
Richard works at an auto body repair shop.
God can move you from the back to the front.







































