I Love Passion

We had a great Alpha Acton meeting last week. I blogged about it earlier and about the fact that we would be holding it in a tavern. A friend of mine said "do yourself a favour and call it a pub. He suggested that if we call it a pub, it would be less abrassive than tavern,and get us in less trouble with the religious folk.

I have been listening with great interest to the debates about the small groups that have been meeting in the Hooters bars. I'm not sure how you feel personally about this, but I for one am all for it.

While I understand God to be very Holy and Righteous, I dont get hung up about "holy places"
I think that man makes up these so called holy places. I remember when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well and she says soemthing to the effect that the Jews say we have to worship in Jerusalem while her elders said soemwhere else. I should actually pull the quote for you, but you know where i'm going with this. Jesus said there will come a time when we no longer worship on this hill or that, but in the spirit of truth. Jesus was never afraid to go to where the people were. So I beleive that worshipping in spirit and in truth means understanding Gods Holiness and desire that none should perish and that His word is truth and able to stand any where we take it. While Jesus never intended us to be drunks,His first recorded miracle was at the wedding banquet. He showed us that he would come to us where we were. His desire for relationship meant hobknobbing and brushing shoulders with some pretty un clean folk. Did he shy away from that? No he didnt, and neither should we. We should boldly go where no church person has gone before.

So any way, this is just pre amble to the point I was going to make about passion. We were all very excited for what we perceived to be Gods will for us in Acton. As bold and strange as that may seem, my team is pumped with passion. One person reported that they were so excited that they couldnt sleep that night. Now that is passion. Another came up to me unsolicited and said...I cant wait. This is going to be so great! I cant beleive how excited I am. Passion folks, passion.

So I've been listening to RAP music lately. Strange genre for an old Hippie. I actually like it. T-bone says in one of his songs how his church family was rejecting his street ministry. While they were warming up the pues he was on the street. Its easy to sit back and pass judgement on things from the safety of ones "safe zone".

I got an idea.

Why dont we get so passionate about the saving grace of Jesus Christ and go to ALL THE WORLD and tell them. That doesnt just mean going to Africa or the 60/40 zone. No it means going to the streets and Taverns. It means going to the streets in Toronto, or Guelph, or Acton or even Erin. All the world is all the world and that includes the places that take us out of our cushy seats and right into the heart of the tough stuff.

I thank God for the passion of this team. I am honoured and excited to work with people who are not afraid to slug it out on other people turf. God is big, bold and powerful and His word will not return to us void. No His word will spark an interest and plant a seed for those poeple who need to hear. His word has the power that can lead us to freedom and salvation.