DOING Church

Ok, so tonight I was with a group of people who DID Church (that's a Bill Akins-ism). The strange part was that we were at UTA when it happened.

A few of us went to a Postsecret event held tonight at the Bluebonnet Ballroom in the University Center at UTA. If you aren't familiar with Postsecret, you can go to www.postsecret.com to see what the phenomenon is all about. It is the brainchild of a man named Frank Warren who invited people to send him their secrets on postcards. Later he created a blog which he still updates five years later with secrets he receives each week. He has also created five books from the postcards, the latest book dealing with issues of death and spirituality. WARNING: some of the messages are R-Rated. They purport to be real secrets and Warren's goal is to create a community for people to be able to truly share what is hidden deep inside of them.

At the event tonight he showed several examples of his postcards and also spoke on his experience of knowing so many of people's secrets. He then opened up a couple of microphones, and allowed folks to share with the crowd!

One young lady spoke of all the love she has to give, and how afraid she is that she will never find that special person to share her love with. As she closed her tearful statement another young lady called out from the crowd, 'Me, too!'. Then from the other side of the ballroom another young lady said, 'I'm afraid of that, too.' Finally, a third lady stood up and shared emphatically that she didn't meet that special someone until she was 37 and so the young lady should not give up hope. It was a beautiful thing, and a powerful evidence of community.

The interesting thing for me was I had this sense (not sure if it was exactly a vision or not) of Christ standing in the middle of this community with arms outstretched, responding to the deep and real hurts people were sharing.

But secretly I wondered...have we in the community of faith offered the same opportunity to people that they were receiving tonight? The opportunity to share things that folks are desperately afraid of, and help them to lay those fears down at the cross? And then I thought, how many folks within our tiny house Church are nursing these same types of secret fears?

How can we help them to see the beauty and truth David speaks about in Psalm 3...I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. To find comfort in God and surround people with a community who refuse to remember your lowest moments.

I want to be THAT people.

Grace and Peace

Ryan