Loving the Bride

I walk out of church disgruntled with something almost every week. It's usually either a fakeness that I perceive in people, or it's that I think there is something they ought to be doing differently, or I'm disappointed in the commitment of the people to the church community. There is a church back in California, near where I went to college, that I so wish I could still be a part of.

Then there's the capital-C-Church. How many times per week (per day, sometimes) do I come across another person throwing around the name of Christ, while looking little or nothing like Him? Yikes. It can be intensely frustrating. For years, I have hesitated to use the term "Christian" to refer to myself, simply because it has so many un-Christ-like connotations in our culture.

So it's not that I don't understand what frustrated disciples of Jesus are feeling. I do!

But do you know what I have become convinced of?

True, I believe that God grieves over churches and Christians that reflect Him poorly. But I have become convinced that believers who harbor resentment and negative attitudes toward the church grieve him all the more. The Church, in all her confusion, is His bride. He LOVES the Church. Yes, He loves you and me individually, but we, collectively, are his chosen and precious bride. The Church is that close to His heart. We must find a positive way to deal with our cynicism about the Church.

Brothers and sisters who follow Jesus with me, I pray that a special place for this messy Church (and the local church) will take root in our hearts. I pray that we may grow to love the Church as Christ loves her - sacrificially, even in the midst of her obvious failings.

After all, if those of us who have eyes to see her faults pull out of the Christian community, who will lead her? Who will help her to grow in faith, hope, peace, joy and love? Who will cast a vision for her that more closely resembles what the early Church exemplified in the book of Acts? We each have a part to play in making this bride ready for her Bridegroom. God forbid we abandon His bride.

As St. Augustine once said, "The Church is a whore, but she's my mother." (Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne, page 354).

...

P.S. If you could use a little encouragement with regard to the church, check out Philip Yancey's Church: Why Bother?

Top 5...

Here are the Top Five things I get excited about, when I think about teaching English:
(in no particular order)

1. Cross-curricular assignments, where students must draw from what they are learning in other subjects in order to do their work for English class.
2. Assignments that reflect real life, such as learning how to write college entrance essays.
   
3. Making really great use of multimedia - making movies from concept to screening, using blogging as a writing, reflecting and interacting tool, etc.
4. Organizing my curriculum into large projects or papers, with bite-sized, graded checkpoints along the way.
   
5. Fostering higher-order thinking, from projects that require students to analyze, synthesize and create, down to the types of multiple-choice questions I ask on a test.

Mmm. I'm feeling inspired just typing it all out =)

update, huh?

it seems to be the season for overdue blog updates.

tag. i'm it.

mostly i got tired of posting job possibilities and the subsequent "no"s. this job market is CRAZY, people. have i told you yet that they aren't even accepting applications for substitute teachers in the public schools in my county? yeah. it's that bad.

the good news is that they will open the application for a very brief window of time in september. and that is my plan. subbing scares me, but what else is there? i have to get teaching experience in order to get certified, and i haven't had a shred of luck with private schools. i know that if this is where God's taking me, He's not going to leave me high and dry out there.

this means that i'm also going to work on finishing up my last 4 courses toward certification. THIS is what i'm excited about. i'm a big nerd about school, if it's a subject that interests me. i looove it. classes start in just a few weeks!

in other news: a few months ago, i read a book called "irresistible revolution" by shane claiborne.

and it rocked my world.

it was so thought-provoking. eyeopening. i appreciated it so deeply. and it was such a great read - easy and conversational, but still very meaty. you should really check it out, if you haven't already. it is essentially a memoir of how his theological and spiritual journey has shaped the way that he has chosen to live.

in a nutshell, he grew up steeped in church and had a great time, but ended up wondering what it would look like if people really took Jesus seriously. in his search, he thought that mother teresa seemed to be someone who was completely living out what she believed in - really a "follower" and not just a "believer." so he worked for in calcutta for a while. when he came back, he moved into a high-need community in philadelphia and began a community called "the simple way," where they pool resources, care for poor folks, help people (esp. children), and redistribute wealth.

here's him, talking about his perspective in a short video clip. i really encourage you to take the 10 minutes to watch the whole thing. i find it incredibly refreshing, spiritually. check it out.