A Good Friday prayer

Here are two portions of a powerful prayer written in 1968 by the late Henri Nouwen. I pray you’d spend a few moments today reflecting on the sacrifice of Jesus for His creation and His people.

I look at your dead body on the cross. The soldiers, who have broken the legs of the two men crucified with you, do not break your legs, but one of them pierces your side with a lance, and immediately blood and water flow out. Your heart is broken, the heart that did not know hatred, revenge, resentment, jealousy or envy but only love, love so deep and so wide that it embraces your Father in heaven as well as all humanity in time and space. Your broken heart is the source of my salvation, the foundation of my hope, the cause of my love. It is the sacred place where all that was, is and ever shall be is held in unity. There all suffering has been suffered, all anguish lived, all loneliness endured, all abandonment felt and all agony cried out. There, human and divine love have kissed, and there God and all men and women of history are reconciled. All the tears of the human race have been cried there, all pain understood and all despair touched. Together with all people of all times, I look up to you whom they have pierced, and I gradually come to know what it means to be part of your body and your blood, what it means to be human.

As I look, my eyes begin to recognize the anguish and agony of all the people for whom you gave yourself. Your broken heart becomes the heart of all of humanity, the heart of all the world. You carry them all: abandoned children, rejected wives and husbands, broken families, the homeless, refugees, prisoners, the maimed and tortured, and the thousands, yes millions, who are unloved, forgotten and left alone to die. I see their emaciated bodies, their despairing faces, their anguished looks. I see them all there, where your body is pierced and your heart is ripped apart. O compassionate Lord, your heart is broken because of all the love that is not given or received.

Filed under: Life

Did the resurrection really happen?

Filed under: Church

Audio from Ecclesia Gathering

A month ago I wrote about the Ecclesia National Gathering in Washington, DC. Though I haven’t been to many conferences, it ranks as the best I’ve ever attended. What I appreciated most was that it combined the best of the academic world with innovative and experienced church planters and pastors. Represented were men and women sincerely concerned for the future of the church in an increasingly post-Christian America and who believe strongly that the answers to our declining influence are not to be found in the arena of technique or style (better methods of attracting people). The way forward, instead, must originate in a theological shift in our understanding of the church, wherein the Kingdom of God and the Mission of God are paramount. 

I strongly urge you to visit the Ecclesia site and listen (for free) to the main session teachings. If you only listen to one, I would suggest Session 5 by Dr. Darrell Guder. In this lecture he unpacks the meaning and theology behind the word “missional.” Since the site does not provide them, I am including the session titles below. I hope this helps you choose which ones you’d like to listen to. 

1. Engaging: Missionary Strategies Then & Now
2. Organizing: Structures for Incarnational Church
3. Challenges: Barriers to Mission in the Western Context
4. Leadership: Guiding Missional Movements
5. Sending: Releasing the Lay Apostolate
6. Communication: Hearing the Good News in Context
7. Scripture: A Missional Hermeneutic

Filed under: Church, Mission, Theology