this is my third time coming to the new site church, here in ridley. BRV media planted another one in ridley because quite frankly...we need it.
but can we just pause and recognize how this county needed a good church? one that flourishes, rains truth, speaks and lives out hope. kind of like luke 4.18
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
(totes my "life verse").
church is now in an old Leiper church. Stained glass windows, shades of gray and brown on the walls, an altar, pews. the whole thing.
do you know how incredible it was to have people scattered throughout the pews, arms open, wanting to just dance in the presence of the Great I Am?
Yesterday all of my passions, fears, doubts, dreams, hopes, insecurities, gifts, thankfulness, purposes....all that i am....were wrapped into one experience and exploded into the love i received.
standing next to my mom in worship. looking over my shoulder and seeing eric, a kid who graduated with christina on his knees. no one will really get it. people in ridley...well, you don't just go to church for fun. he was alone. and he keeps coming back. why? because he knows and he gets it.
overweight people. young and very old. skinny people. rough looking people. lower socio-economic classes. swarthmorians (wealthy people). everyone and anyone...ah, how refreshing to get a visual image of the kingdom.
sometimes it gets suffocating to have your community always look and feel the same...
anyway, i can't express what i felt and why i felt it. but i felt beyond free, loved, thankful. am i sad at the state of this world? why of course...am i going to change this world? why, hell yeah...but do i love who i am in the core of my being and the purpose i have for today and only today? why, jesus, i am so incredibly thankful.
i love him so much...because he gets me...when no one else does.
the first will be last and the last shall be first. the economy of the kingdom is upside down. how did i lose that? why do i feel entitled to earn more denari for a longer day's work? how sickening i am. a wretch.
"how he loves" was played. i've heard this song three hundred and seventy two times plus a thousand more. but yesterday morning, the line "so heaven meets earth with an unforeseen kiss." and people also know it as "so heaven meets earth with a sloppy wet kiss." but honestly unforeseen was so perfect for me to hear. why do i grow dismal with the state of this world? God kissed this world, God kissed this Earth, God kissed me.
a truly depressing world would be one where the Kingdom never came and wasn't coming. but Heaven kissed earth...blindsided. had no clue. out of no where, the lord was like BAM, HERE ARE MY LIPS. (hehe) but what he is really saying is, "here is my love, my grace, tenderness, hope...everything will be okay because I did something about it."
a truly depressing world would be one where the Kingdom never came and wasn't coming. but Heaven kissed earth...blindsided. had no clue. out of no where, the lord was like BAM, HERE ARE MY LIPS. (hehe) but what he is really saying is, "here is my love, my grace, tenderness, hope...everything will be okay because I did something about it."
and that was the most powerful kiss human-kind has ever known.
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