A church is not a center for religious goods and service, where people pay a fee and receive a product in return. A church is not an organization that surveys its demographics to find out what the market is demanding at this particular moment and then adjusts its strategy to meet that consumer niche.
The way of Jesus is the path of descent. It is about our death. It is our willingness to join the world in its suffering, it's our participation in the new humanity, it's our weakness calling out to others in their weakness.
I do not think that we as individuals and as churches really want to suffer. We really love our comfortable life and we do not want Jesus to mess that up. Well, at times, maybe a lot of times, we need God to mess our lives up.
The gathering of the church, in a service or worship or teaching setting, is to remind, instruct, and inspire people about being Eucharist for the world they find themselves in.
We as individuals and as churches really need to have a fuller understanding of the Eucharist and what it means to our lives and to those lives that we come into contact with.
The Eucharist is ultimately about what we do out there, in the flow of every day life.
We need to fully understand (as much as our mind can grasp) the grace of God, so we can extend that grace to individuals. In my opinion, we are not good at extending grace.
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