To Vote or Not to Vote

A response to this blog will prove your intestinal fortitude. This week Wanda and I are team preaching on Christian involvement in voting and the political process. I value your ruminations.

I will indeed chime in with my own opinions but not until early next week.

So here are the questions:

1. Do you vote?
2. Why or why not?
3. How has faith informed your decision or not?

Be brave. Let it flow. The Spirit is with you!

Jeff

Unified in Faith

This Sunday I am preaching on Ephesians 4:1-16. Part of the passage goes like this: "It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."

I really have been focusing on how the exercise of roles, which are gifts from God, builds up the church, leading people to greater spiritual maturity. Stuck in the middle of this passage, however, is this phrase "unity in the faith" and I am wrestling with what that looks like in reality. When a church is unified in faith what do they do? What do they not do? What do they appear to be?

What do you think? Anyone have a concrete illustration to share?

Jeff

The End

Today completes my extended sabbath 2008. Post-sabbatical reflections are forthcoming but will arrive later than this Sunday when I do some live reflecting with the good Central folks. Don't want to ruin the surprise, after all.

Suffice it to say, I have learned, I have rested, I have played, and I have worked. I believe that my mind is clearer now than it has been in years. My wife and children know me again. I have experienced a sort of renaissance in my love of scripture via my work on my devotional book.

It seems like these are pretty good things.

I appreciate very much your prayers and your walking alongside of me in this journey.

I do plan to maintain the blog. My hope is that it will become a forum for dialogue, not monologue. I am simply too boring for that to be very fruitful!

I will post per movements of the Spirit and whims. Perhaps these will be connected to sermon and study preparation. Perhaps not. At any rate, I believe firmly that the Lord works in our dialogues to grant all participants a broader understanding of whatever matter is before us. It is a variation on that "wherever two or three are gathered in my name" thing.

You can chime in by clicking on "0 Comments" at the bottom of any given post.

Keep on walking with me. In Christ.


Pastor Jeff