Finding the Sacred moments

I had a prophetic dream last night.

I was in an old Euro town, in front of a cathedral. I knew it was Marseille, but not b/c of landmarks. People in the streets were going bananas...really flipping out. It was partying worthy of Isla Vista on Halloween. In ths whene church behind me, candles were lit and people were praying....crying out to God for the people in the streets. I was sitting on an old fallen pillar in front of the doors, watching the revelers and listening to the prayers being offered up as I traced drawings in the sand in front of me with a finger. That's when I realized with a chill I had been sitting practically on top of a skeleton! The person had obviously died in sheer agony, desperately reaching for the doors of the church. I looked around and realized the skeletons were everywhere, bony fingers reaching for some long lost hope within the walls of the towering cathedral. I woke up.


Time is running out. We need to pour ourselves into the service of Christ to the Lost. Today.

I realized from all the comments you guys left that I kinda freaked a few people out with the Catholic comments from my last blog. Let me put it this way: My beliefs about the Catholic Church alternate between dismissing it as completely unbiblical and allowing for it as a "denomination" within Christianity. (which I dont' think is BEST, but is OK.) These moments mainly happen when, like for the past six months plus, I begin to CRAVE tradition. It's when I look around at how money gets spent and what service to the poor and hungry actually comes out of most nondenominational churches these days and I stress out about growth vs. FAITH.

Let me give you a further example. At Manna, which is an incredibly biblically sound church, we are pretty huge. It's a mega church, and is growing every day. Some of our deepest frustrations there have been: 1. the emphasis on seminary as if it were the o;y way into ministry. We firmly believe a man's family is his seminary. Jesus never went to College. 2. the financial decisions. This year we are spending 25 000 on building a seminary school for the underground church in China, and only 8 000 on buying them bibles, even though they are literally DESPERATE for the Word of God. We have brand new couches in the lounge, but are only sending 1900 to our missionaries who sold everything and WENT to Thailand. Not cool. 3. The over emphasis on groups and programs. We like to think that church life should center around biblically oriented families who are then equipped to change the world... not a busy subsitute for the world where all members are sent in opposite directions to experience God their "own" way.

If you'll remember, I was recently ACHING to hear hymns during Sunday worship, and God answered that prayer by providing Hymns in the worship sets--- awesome. But that doesn't make up for the fact that I often feel like I'm looking at a successful CEO (and this isn't anything against my pastors, mind you. This is just the kind of place they are in and there isn't anything wrong with it, it's just not really my thing) and it bugs me that everyone in that room tends to want to be HIM, and not JESUS. This is in no way Michael's fault, but it's a fact. So much so that as we expand, Michael has to be the speaker at each of our church plants in order to ensure their success, thus running himself ragged. We have fourteen pastors on staff. I say: put them front and center in each new church plant. Grace Churches International isn't about Michael Fletcher. He is the means to an end.

Anyways, then comes the ugliness of the building. It's very--- posh. But it isn't the kind of beauty that I am accustomed to meeting God in--- there are no pictures of Jesus or statues to look at..... no hard wood pews and no loud echoes. No gorgeous windows. It just looks like an auditorium. I miss Cathedrals, where I was raised going to church. I miss the nooks and crannies and the intricate devotional architectural details built right into the walls.

Then there's the liturgy. I miss being part of a faith community that's on the same page, so to speak. As Jessica mentioned in her experience at Lourdes, one of my most profound spiritual experiences happened during the Journee Mondiale De La Jeunesse (World Youth Day) in 1997 in Paris, where Catholics from the entire world send their children on a pilgrimage to whatever city is chosen that year. Catholic families then take them in and they meet together to celebrate the mass with the pope as a group of thousands... no common language, but a common faith in Christ that surpasses the boundaries of nations.... it's a very powerful image of unity and absolutely revelatory of the work of the Spirit in the lives of some of these young people.



Which brings me to my next point: the idea of pilgrims, on a journey. Evangelicals have TOTALLY lost this... that our walk is a journey and that it can be aided by experiencing Christ's work in different settings as we, like Isaiah, say: "Here I am, Lord. Send me!"
Catholics take pilgrimages to various holy sites throughout the world as a general rule, and do so often. No one in my family affected me in this way more than my own grandmother, who used to take these pilgrimages often, ending the journey on her knees, sometimes walking the whole way, just to arrive at the site of God's leading and to fall at the foot of the Cross of her Jesus. She would return from these with incredible stories of faith and healing--- miraculous works, and overflowing with faith that could move mountains. These were the places she would bring home jugs of holy water taken from a spring and douse us in it, hoping somehow to help us experience the same momentous spiritual breakthrough. I connect very strongly with the idea of a physical pilgrimage representing and aiding my spiritual walk--- I've always been a wandering Jew.

Then there are the sacraments. It seems in the evangelical church that often nothing is totally SACRED. Even when I take communion, and I am in connection with Christ and with my bretheren, I feel frustrated that that moment is somewhat cliched... often peppered with a prayer that might contain a joke or a sly comment. There is a strong appeal to me in reverence, and I feel often that reverence is missing from protestant worship. The sacraments offer a time where HOLINESS is the norm, and I miss that frequently. Some days more than others.

The last thing is prayer. While I find it incredibly powerful to pray according to scripture-- freely talking with my God who calls me "friend," I am also moved by the power evidenced in praying The Word. And what better way to pray The Word than through devotional prayer rooted in the Word? I guess what I'm saying is that I greatly miss the meditative aspect of prayer-- the times and the seasons, the liturgical calendar, and the idea that prayer is a rhythmical, necessary thing. My grandmother (there she is again!) recently suffered a stroke, after which she could no longer speak or move correctly. She confused "yes" and "no," and mumbled nonsense while believing she was making proper sentences. And yet every night, as I lay in my bedroom which shared a wall with hers while I was visiting, I found myself confronted with a fact that my Protestant brain couldn't work with: She was praying. Despite her inability to speak, the prayers she had lived by and knew through rote memorization were the oNLY things she could say correctly and without a stutter. She couldn't speak, but she could pray! THat meant a lot to me, and I know it meant a lot to Jesus.

Ok, so that's the jist of what I miss and the reasons for it. But the problem is, like Isaid, that I just can't comprehend how one can biblically account for devotion to mary, as well as the topic of the actual BECOMING of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.

Recently, the thing that really got me thinking was a conversation in a mormon apologetics group about apostles. I believe in apostolic succesion. I believed until very recently that Michael Fletcher had an apostolic calling on his life. But when one of the people I was debating with procured a teaching of Michael's on apostleship, I realized I didn't believe what he was saying. And neither does Wayne. Which frustrates us to no end-- we want to believe in our leaders!

So why don't we become Episcopalians, right? It's like being Catholic but not participating in the "debatable" doctrinal stuff.

Wayne doesn't care that much about tradition--- he would be happy in a baptist or pentacostal church. But the thing is, he hates denominationalism. It would kill him to go to a denominational church, let alone to call ourselves by a denomination. To him, it's like dividing Christ. It can't be done. And I agree-- although I think it's ok to know better but to be members of a denominational church.

Episcopalians pride themselves on being "the middle ground" between Catholic and Protestant denominations. I believe nearly every word in the Book of Common Prayer. But then I look at what the Anglican church is doing and I think---- I can't be a part of that. They are ordaining women and marrying gay couples!! That's ANTI biblical. So annoying. At least the Catholics are holding fast to what they believe and not changing a thing.

So then I ask myself: is it worse to ask Mary to intercede for you or to marry a gay couple? Is it worse to confess to a priest or to have a female pastor? And the answer is--- they are all wrong!!! So that leaves me at: Catholicism is a Christian denomination, no greater or worse than Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, or Anglican. But where does that leave me, a girl who longs for structure and desires above all else to serve the Lord Jesus Christ according to HIS WORD?

Frustrated. That's where it leaves me. Flipping frustrated, and wishing I could just sit down with Jesus and be like--- 'OK, here's the deal. I really want to worship you in Spirit and Truth and I'm so confused and irritated!'

Well, I guess I can do that-- now. Instead of babbling about it to you guys on the internet. :P