Radical

 “I hear you are a Baptist preacher. Well, sit here. It won’t kill ya! I have been Baptist my whole life, but I love it here!”

                 I looked at Gary and smiled, not sure whether to laugh or take off in a dead sprint for the door.  Yesterday was First Sunday. We were at the McLemoresville Methodist Church. 

                 You see my mom is a Methodist masquerading as a Baptist most of the time.  She relinquished her Methodist heritage when we lived in Nashville so that we would go to church as a family. This has changed since Cindy and I are now grown.  Mom and daddy have moved back to the country, and mom has sacrificed long enough.  

                She will attend the Baptist church with Daddy with the understanding that on the  First Sunday of each month  she gets to go to her church.  She grew up in this church and on the first Sunday she attends to take communion.  We had come here to visit for the weekend so we went to ”her” church.

                Walking through the door was like going back in time.  This was my grandmother’s church.   I laughed at the people that would come in to welcome “the visitors”, then look at me in the face and say “You are Niki!”  I would just smile.

                 I spent a lot of time in this little church as a child.  This is where my grandmother attended for  over 70 years.  These little old ladies hugging on me ,held me in their arms and rocked me as a baby.   They remembered me.  They had prayed for me my entire life. They still do.

                 I was so caught up in the sentimentality of it all that I missed the fact that my children were completely overwhelmed. Let me see if I can paint you a picture of yesterday.

                The church itself is timeless.  It looks the same as it did when I was a child.  It looks the same as it did in my parent’s wedding pictures.  OH AND  ONE MORE IMPORTANT DETAIL:  The entire congregation has less than fifty people in it. 

 Picture Little House on the Prairie.....and add a choir loft.

                 My girls couldn’t believe it.  Where is the band? The lights?  What is a hymnal?   and my personal favorite… Whoa , wait a minute, I have to sit in here and listen to the sermon because there is no Kids service!

Welcome to the country my friends.   It is like nothing you will ever experience.

                I found myself critiquing the service (don’t laugh cause you do it too).   The music, the message, the whole package;  how did it measure up?

                I thought it was cute when they called the youth group for a “special”  and five kids came forward to sing.  They sang their little hearts out, but the melodious sounds of beauty were lacking.   It wasn’t nails on a chalk board, but it was close. I was glad that the special was over. I clapped politely and prepared for the next part of the service.

 What happened next sent my head reeling.

                I couldn’t believe my ears and eyes when the church gave them a standing ovation and the congregation yelled out “Sing another one”.  I looked at Lindsey; her face and my brain were on the same wave link. 

What in the world?  I obviously missed something here.

                 I was corrected right there by God.  I wasn’t put in time out, but it was close.

 You see, I have been reading the David Platt book, Radical.  I have spent weeks pondering a few of the statements in the book.  They absolutely haunt me:

 “ I realized I was on a collision course with an American church culture where success is defined by bigger crowds, bigger budgets, and bigger buildings.  I was now confronted with the startlingly reality: Jesus spurned the things that my church culture said were most important.”

 “ I could not help but think that somewhere along the way we missed what is radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable”

 “We are molding Jesus into our own image.   He is beginning to look a lot like us , because, after all that is who we are most comfortable with. The danger now is that when we gather in our church buildings to sing and lift our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshipping the Jesus of the Bible.  Instead we may be worshipping ourselves.”

                The Jesus and God I am comfortable with….. that  scares me. To be so very safe in my relationship because I have removed anything I don’t necessarily like.

The Gospel according to Niki?

                 I have been trying to figure out how comfortable I am, and what does God want me to do about it , if anything.    I struggle with what a radical life today looks like.   The “Give it all up for ME” is just too vague.    My personality is one of doing.   I want a check off list.  I want it to be defined.

                Does it look like a service stripped down to authenticity?  A little country church that is small, but steady and faithful?  Is it bells and whistles removal?  What do I have to let go of to be kingdom minded.?

 and honestly.......Am I really ready to do that?

 Give up my comfort? Give up what I am used to for something so completely foreign?

               After the choir sat down, my heart began to see what God was trying to tell me. God demands that we give our best and the little choir did.  They had nothing except a willing spirit to serve a Mighty God. 

 What makes me think that God didn’t smile on their offering?  Pure hearts are far more valuable than talents, lights, or fancy stage performance.

 I had been so judgemental based on what I thought it should be or look like.  I acted as if the music was actually for me anyway.

That is what I am being exposed to in the book Radical.  We live in a church culture about us, and it should be ultimately about only HIM.

                I think God waited until he had my complete attention to show me the answer I had desperately been searching to find. It was a  moment right at the end of the service.  HE pretty much answered everything I had been wrestling with lately.

  I was watching the communion service as I saw one of my grandmother’s good friends go up and receive her communion, her bread and juice. 

 I sat there and humbly watched her take her offering of remembrace. I couldn't believe my eyes as it was happening. While everyone else walked  back to their seat, she walked over to the altar, got down on her knees at 88 years old, bowed her head and prayed.

God cleared up all of my confusion right there.  He said,

                                   “This is what I desire.”

  The bells, the whistles, the lights, even the denominations are all just tools to get to this:             

                                 A heart bowed to me...

               Niki, this is what it means to be Radical.