30 January 2008 by Mandy Sayers.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8

“Let us pray.” It is a simple statement and one that we often hear in worship. It is a powerful invitation to encounter the living God, the One who made us and who has called us to be at Glen Mar at this particular point in its history. It is an acknowledgment that wherever two or more gather in the name of Jesus, there he is in the midst of them. It’s an encounter with a God who has brought us, as people and as a congregation, to this place and time so that God can use us to make a difference in the lives of people: some we already know, some we haven’t met yet, and some whose names we may never know.

People of Glen Mar Church, we believe your presence here at this time is no accident. As we get ready to make a difference in our world from a new site in the name of Jesus Christ, we invite you to enter into a time of being open, listening and connecting with God. People of Glen Mar Church, “Let us pray.” Starting on February 6 (Ash Wednesday), let us pray together for one hundred days, as an act of hope, preparation and commitment.

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30 January 2008 by Mandy Sayers.

The LCI conference closed with an address from Dr. Peter Storey, past President of the South African Council of Churches and former Methodist Bishop in South Africa where he was part of the church’s struggle against apartheid. I thought his talk was the best and most awful thing I’d heard in a long time. I had to wait to blog on it until I had recovered.

Have you ever just been going through your life and suddenly the Gospel hits you in the face? It was like hearing a Pauline letter. I cried right there in front of the church staff and everything. Crying in public is something I try to avoid.

He talked about the struggle in South Africa, the Church on trial on trumped up charges by the government. He described church leaders from around the world descending on a dingy country courthouse to stand with the local church representatives, an example of what the Church can do when it takes its mission seriously and stands united.

But he also talked about white South Africa during apartheid in a way that drew some disturbing and accurate parallels with America today. Instead of seeing all humanity as one community, we are quick to divide along economic, racial and social lines. We are blind to those problems we do not want to see. We live in a big bubble of privilege that comes from being a part of a rich First World powerful country. If the church is to do its job, we need to begin to see the people we don’t want to see, to come to know them and realize that they are Christ for us.

He talked about many prosperous communities being like the man born blind, whom Jesus touched twice, once and the man could see shapes, twice and he could see clearly. Perhaps the American church needs to be “touched by Jesus a second time,” he said.

It made me ashamed for the ways in which I have become complacent–my own unwillingness to see and act in the name of the Gospel. When I called Eric afterwards, I said, “I feel wretched.” He said, “Honey, that’s great! What a gift!” (Yeesh). But what he meant was, the Gospel of Jesus is supposed to knock a person off her horse from time to time in order to bear some good fruit for God.

And in the end, I think God is working at Glen Mar to make sure we are about the ministry of Christ in the world, doing Church, not playing Church. Speaking truth to power, not talking to ourselves.

I think that’s why God has given us the new facility, to do and be the Church in new and kingdom of God sorts of ways. I pray that I might be faithful to those vows made at my baptism and that my own work in ministry would bear some fruit for God.

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