My friend Darren put something really amazing on Facebook yesterday (he does it often actually…); a profound heartfelt cry which I will share unchanged and uncommented. I’ll let Darren’s heart speak; see if he strikes a chord with your heart too:
“Often I wonder what it would be like to go back in time to the New Testament church… no set ‘patterns’ or traditions like we have today… no ‘one-hundred different denominations’, driving man against man, driving the nails through His hands and making a mockery of the cross… no church buildings… no ‘6-point sermons… no ‘approved’ bible schools… no man-made ‘scriptural’ ways of doing things… no excuses or clichés… no ‘greater than thous’… just pure reality-driven walks with the Spirit. Starting from scratch. Completely open to His will. How I wish we could wipe the slate clean. How I wish we were as children. “Here I am Lord. Take me as I am!” No pre-conceived ideas of how it should be. Just willingly coming to Him and allowing Him to lead in whatever way He wills. “But we’ve always done it this way!”… Hmmmm. No compromises! ”
Quoted with permission. Thanks Darren!
When I read the topic, I felt that You are talking about Us, Human…but You are talking about church, which is collection of people of same faith…
It me give you my perspective of “Return to Simplicity”…
God made us and gave the complete Earth, only for us live happily but like any Human, Adam wanted more…Which can never be satisfied!
Return to Simplicity, means BE SATISFIED, with what ever God has given YOU only not others, As most of us are living either to satisfy our senses or our EGO.
I think what my friend mainly meant was that he is longing for the simplicity of relationship with God being presented in Churches, rather than a load of other baggage. We do need to be content, though, yes – but remember that Jesus came to bring in God’s Kingdom on earth, and this means that we can never be really satisfied until we see that Kingdom come in its fulness. But yes, in the meantime, be satisfied with what we’ve got, else we end up chasing the wind 😉
It’s the cry of a pilgrim’s heart.
Christian Institutions get in the way of simple faith in God partly because they have come to see God in the context of Jesus instead of Jesus in the context of God. Through Jesus they strive and claim to own God. Simple faith says God owns all created beings, not we Him, and that is comforting.