Month: November 2008

in the world.. not of

kevinhaglund Leave a comment

Our small group has been going through a curriculum written by Ed Stetzer called “Sent.” It is a call for Christians to return to the missional lifestyle and being in the world, but not of the world.

In I Corinthians 5:9-11, Paul writes:

“I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.”

Paul is saying that we are supposed to hang out with sexually immoral, greedy, swindlers and idolaters–as long as they are non-believers. We are not even supposed to eat with people who claim to be believers in Jesus but who are sexually immoral, greedy, swindlers and greedy.

This is a switch for most Christians. We tend to separate ourselves from the non-believing “sinners,” but end up tolerating Christians with those same behaviors. The call to embrace a missional lifestyle means taking this passage seriously and building relationships with messy people while confronting Christians who are choosing improper lifestyles. That is the challenge we are embracing moving forward in starting browns mill church.

waiting

kevinhaglund Leave a comment

Like most of us, I hate waiting. Well, I spent my entire morning today waiting. It all started while I was sitting in our staff devotions when my cell phone rang. It was Suzanne. She was on her way to the doctor with Sarah and had a flat tire. On October 3rd, our 10 year old middle child Sarah had a pre-cancerous mole removed from the back of her heel–right on her Achilles. So, we switched cars at the tire store and she went on to the doctor’s office.

Since the surgical procedure on October 3rd, we’ve been waiting for her foot to heel. We’ve been back to the doctor 3 times and got the nonchalant, “It looks good,” but we didn’t think it did. Friday, not to be too descriptive, it was runny and had a pungent odor. So we called our primary care physician who agreed to see her this morning.

I’m still waiting at the tire store for what I thought would be a simple patch ‘n go procedure on the tire. My name is called and I’m presented with a $450 estimate for my leaky tire. Our tires are only 20K miles into their 65K mile warranty but are worn out. Evidently, this is due to our need for an alignment and new shocks all around on our 2005 Sienna. I decline and ask for the patch ‘n go procedure.

Back at the doctor’s office, our regular doctor takes one look at Sarah’s foot and comes to the same conclusion we did–it doesn’t look good, at all. Suzanne is given the name and number of a skin graft professional and three prescriptions to fill.

I’m still waiting at the tire store. I could practically recite the half hour CNN Headline news stories playing on the TV in the waiting area. Suzanne calls on her way from the doctor’s office. I tell her the news about the tires, alignment and shocks and we decide to go ahead with replacing the 4 tires since they are crediting 67% of the purchase price toward 4 new tires. She picks me up and we head over to our neighborhood pharmacist to fill our 3 prescriptions. More waiting!

Finally, we head back to the tire store where Suzanne volunteers to wait with the kids while I head into the office. At 12:30pm she texts me, “still waiting :-/”

When I get home, I think we’re going to cast lots and find out who in our family has been praying for patience! Speaking of praying, please pray for God to heal Sarah’s foot. Here is a picture of what it looked like last night.