The Embrace of the Savior

It surely must seem to some that I am just an old preacher who longs for days which exist only in my memory.  Perhaps, I come across as one who is too judgmental about the church as it moves into an era of ministry which is so different than the one I knew.  I have no argument with anyone who reaches such conclusions.  The younger version of myself was not always open and receptive to the words of those pastors and preachers upon whose shoulders I stood every time I stood in the pulpit.  The truth is I do not hope and pray for the past to be re-invented, but that the church would once again become intentional about inviting people to experience a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  

A preacher whose sermons I hear often keeps talking about the need to connect head and heart.  Of course, he is right, but it is also true that the church of our day is too much about the head and not enough about the heart.  Knowing the right thing to do is not the same as being the person who does the right thing because of a heart changed by a relationship with Jesus.  The church puts the cart before the horse when it calls people to serve Christ in the world before connecting them to the Christ in such a way that His living presence is known in their heart.  We call people to go to the ends of the earth without the fuel to get there and without the spiritual life which will enable them to stay once they go.  

My conviction is that our problems are not political or psychological, but spiritual.  So many are wandering without a destination and without an awareness of home.  More and more I am convinced that there is more spiritual hunger out there in the world as well as in the church than most of us think could be possible.  I long for the church I remember to become the church that not only provides a safe place, but one that also invites people to know that home is within the loving embrace of the Savior.