Friday follow-up #4

We have been a little sporadic on the blog lately. Posts might not be as consistent due to summer but hopefully we will get our groove going:)

• One Prayer starts this weekend. There are about 1350 churches taking part and about 800,000 people. It's inspiring to be a part of this history making series!

• The boys start swim lessons Monday- looking forward to it. Our local swimming pool had a great deal ($30 for 2 weeks of lessons for 1 hour a day).
  

• Speaking of the boys- they were jumping on the trampoline with the sprinkler underneath it today (always a favorite around here). I caught them spitting and then trying to make their spit fly up in the air as they jumped. Then, they crawled underneath the trampoline (after the spit had dissolved of course) and pretended like they were in a rain-forest. Boys will be boys. I love it when they don't know I am listening:)

• I'm not getting into facebook at all. I seriously don't know what the fascination with it is. I keep getting requests from people and just keep ignoring them. If I don't log in for a day or two, I have like 60 requests for things (such as movie quizzes and flower patches). Am I missing something? I will probably stay on it to keep connected with people but am not digging it like I thought I would.
  

• Nothing else happening around here. We are still just catching up from the trip and having house guests.
  

What's going on at your place? What random comments can you share with us today? How are you? Weekend plans? As ALWAYS- thank you for continuing to read! We appreciate you so much!!

One Body (part 2 of 2)

Diversity in Unity

One thing that can quickly become twisted in this concept of being One Body of Christ is the individual aspect. Uniformity is not the goal of unity. Sometimes when the church takes on programs described as "discipleship" we consciously or unconsciously have the incorrect goal of uniformity. The analogy of the church being the Body of Christ tells us the opposite of this is true. We are encouraged in our uniqueness. We have EACH been given gifts (have been designed differently) by the Spirit of God. It is our uniqueness that unifies that allows us to "fit" together and work as ONE body. Uniformity creates more of the same. Our diversity is what should be celebrated not feared. We have too many believers trying to be just like other believers and too many local churches trying to copy every detail of other local churches, and we are reaping the benefits....a dis-functional body.

So how do we grow in unity while discovering our diversities? A.W. Tozer in one of my favorite books, The Pursuit of God, paints a great picture to illustrate this. He writes, "One-hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other. They are one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard." If you try to tune each piano to each other, you will drift away from the original tuning. You have to have the one original that all are tuned too. I love that. When tuned to him, we are able to live out our individual uniqueness in order to promote growth in the ONE Body! The consequence of "tuning" to Jesus is that we are all tuned to each other...like a great orchestra that has been tuned to one standard is only great when they each play their unique parts in unison.

Any thoughts, personal application, or church application from this idea?

One Body (part 1 of 2)

This has continually come up in my reading lately,that as Christians we are uniquely individual in order to promote unity in ONE body (Eph. 4:11-12). To be the ONE Body of Christ is the reason we are all unique. In the church, we have been guilty of pushing the uniqueness of believers to an individual faith. In the Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, "It is impossible to become a new man as a solitary individual." Have you ever thought about that? The fullness of Christ is expressed in his Body, the church, not in me individually (Eph. 1:22-23). By myself, I miss being a part of the fullness of Christ expressed to the world. It only happens through the ONE body. Bonhoeffer states, "The Church is one man, it is the Body of Christ. But it is also many, a fellowship of members (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:12)." We need each other. We need to discover, maintain, and celebrate our uniqueness, for the goal of growing our unity in the body.

Where do you feel the Body of Christ is concerning the issue of being One Body? What can we do differently to realize and live out this wonderful truth?