Mismatched?
Theme of the Week: Faith in Community
Sunday, March 1, 2009
 1 of 1
Who Said It … Timothy Paul Jones
Two years ago Dr. Jones was named assistant professor of leadership and church ministry at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Before that, he pastored First Baptist Church of Rolling Hills on the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Since Timothy Paul is a Star Wars buff, he and his eight-year-old daughter Hannah often spend evenings playing Star Wars Attacktix or chasing each other around the house with lightsabers.
What He Said … Mismatched?
When I worship and pray with my Christian family, I long to be surrounded by a congregation that's as multicultural as an Eskimo drinking kosher vodka from a Mason jar. I want to sing the "Gloria Patri" back-to-back with "We Shall Overcome," I'll Fly Away," and a string of rollicking praise choruses. I want to shake brown hands and white hands, smooth hands and calloused hands, wrinkled hands and tiny newborn hands.
Why? Because church isn't about my personal tastes or desires. In fact, church isn't about me at all. I must give up my foolish delusion that I can make it on my own. It's about a mismatched community of recovering sinners, bound by a Spirit that no one has ever seen. If everyone's educational level, economic status, and racial profile were similar to mine, why would we need each other? Part of the "foolishness of the cross" is the fact that those who rub shoulders in the shadow of the cross are people whom the world would never dream of blending together.
Adapted from Prayers Jesus Prayed (Regal, 2002) by permission.
Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Lord, help me to realize that other Christians really are my brothers and to treat them as family.
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