A noted change

I know this is a little late at night, but its time to think this through. Today I had two people remark that there was "something different" about the way I have been leading in worship, and in a good way.

Today's worship in particular had a few changes: I did not wear a tie, instead I wore a wooden cross that has a story of its own, instead of a cardigan or a suit jacket I wore a more contemporary type of jacket and in the end I had a sizable proportion of my aging congregation participating in singing and dancing "Father Abraham" with the four children of the congregation. Just a few changes, and it seemed totally out of step with a challenging message asking the congregation what we have to let go of to follow Christ more fully.

But was it? If I am going to proclaim the challenging message of Christ, how can this be done from a life of half-measures? If the lack of a tie makes the gospel unable to be heard through me, how deaf will we be to the word of God coming through anyone who doesn't fit our narrow definitions? This is not to say that I do not treat my calling with respect, or am unwilling to give the congregation a chance to participate in the shaping of my ministry (and indeed, thus large segments of my identity.) However the leap of faith has to be made, I do this through the call of Christ. If Christ found me worthy to proclaim the gospel to the youth I was comfortable with and to the congregations I used to call home, why did I convince myself that changing my status and receiving training to enhance my ministry would need to make me go back to relearning everything from the beginning again?

Perhaps instead of learning how to be the minister that I envision when I think of the word, I need to start learning how to be the minister that my Lord envisions when he thinks of me.

Am I a radical fundamentalist?

Yesterday I was having coffee with one of my friends who is an atheist playwright. He says that he is always willing to discuss the big issues about God and life, but all he generally hears from the church is the side issues: homosexuality, ordination of women and the list goes on and on... He stated that he can't get to the basic truths of the faith without working his way through centuries of overlaid tradition.

I cannot say that I have sorted out all of the side issues in my mind, but then again I thankfully have not been in the situations where I have needed to. Yet one things stands out far and above over all others. If fundamental is seen as being that which is at the very basis of something and radical is taking something to its logical extreme, I probably have to plead guilty. For me, the basis of Christianity comes back to something quite simple. If you were able to travel back approximately 2000 years and witness the crucifixion of Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth and convicted blasphemer, what would you see? Do you see the death of a criminal whose claims were treasonous and could be interpreted as being delusional? Or do you see the Son of God dying for humanity on the cross, and interpret the resurrection as the validation of those claims? If your answer is "yes" to the second question, how does this inform your view of God and of humanity, how does it affect the way in which you live your life?

I am aware that this could be seen by some as a diminishment of the role of scripture to merely carrying one little section. Scripture is important for me as it carries that we know about Christ that I may hold most certain and the reflections of a community over centuries about what it means to be in relationship with God. As such, scripture stands at the centre of my meditative, contemplative and proclamatory life. However, I am not willing to stake my faith in Christ on a line-by-line street battle against the tools of modernity. Perhaps I'm making my faith a small target, but this is the rock on which I may stand.