My Thoughts Turn to YOU Today

I have spent some time today thinking and surfing the web. During that time, I came across the article below. Please take a moment to read it. Then spend a few minutes thinking about it and what message you can take away from it.

The message for me goes something like this: There is a place for each of us to worship God but how often are we doing that? I mean, do we really step outside of our busy, man-made lives and quietly be still and look for God? Sure, it is possible to see him in the faces of children on a crowded playground or in the voice of an older adult sharing stories from their past, or in a thousand other ways. But … it seems to me that people feel closer – I feel closer – to God when the surroundings are made as a sacred place.

Worship should be sacred and it should be meaningful and it should be set aside for the One. And I think that there are many ways to do worship. I also think it is extremely important to make a place for our souls to rest, find comfort, be renewed, and maybe feel the touch of Our Creator in the very depths.

For me that can be found in the ancient texts of the Bible and in the places where the saints before gathered to restore their souls and offer comfort to each other. Many others find their place in those quiet pews. Many others connect with their faith, their family history, their special remembrances in those places also. Many others are introduced to faith in community in those places. Many others meet God in those places each and every week.

That is what church should do. That is what church could do if we would simply be the church.

Wholly Bible: A View from the Pew
Malls and Amazement
By RAY WADDLE

Sitting in church the other day, I thought about the mall.

No, I was not fantasizing about Pottery Barn and Sbarro. I was thinking about all the big new churches now that aim to look and feel like the mall, and how glad I am that my little church does not.

My church is the old-fashioned kind – stone arches, long pews, wooden altar rails and tall stained glass panels that tell the stories of Jesus.

In the sweepstakes of religious competition, little neighborhood congregations like mine (with their cramped parking lots) struggle against the dazzling new normal – the large churches that forsake steeples and hymnals and dress codes and stained glass and silence. According to surveys, fewer and fewer young people and families now attend churches that were built before World War II.

I have visited some of the new churches. They are serious about ministry. They are reaching people in new ways.

But something ... (continued at: http://barefootpreachr.org/2011/01/11/my-thoughts-turn-to-you-today/)