Cross and Crown Mission...Christ is There Right Now, if You Hurry You Can Catch Him

Yesterday, I walked right back into the Barrio for the first time in two-and-a-half years.
God literally turned my truck around in the middle of 10th street, leading me up to the steps of a great and powerful place.

There is magic, healing, Christianity happening in Oklahoma City, right under our noses.
I have found the place where Jesus would go if he came back today.
Some people would say these healers are crazy. Before  you do that, read their blogs ('Staff' on their home page), go down and talk with them...see the ancient walls, hallowed as any I've ever seen.

Walk past the faces, the mothers with newborns, they look you square in the eyes. The old men, waiting their turn in prayer, the teenagers wrestling on the floor of the youth center...this is holy stuff.

This is the holy stuff I've spent the last year searching for...cutting check after check to make the Non-Specific Mega Church more mega, mega-er. Sitting in on power P.R./Marketing meetings with Pastors who, if a someone was tele-ported into the scene from a land far, far away, the teleportee wouldn't have a clue these people were involved with a church, let alone Christian Pastors.

My heart has been heavy, with one disappointment after another by these trusted servants, these leaders. From bold face to blatant...all in the name of saving the lost.

So I left the Mega's, and went to a neighborhood church.
Other than having trouble staying awake, a common theme, I felt all right about it.
That is until I looked around the sanctuary and realized I was sitting in a full box of Peach crayons.

In all honesty I think Jesus would be so sad coming back, seeing what's happened.What WE have has done with His instructions...and it's no wonder were all falling on our butts.
We talk about all this love, but treat each other like holy hell, the rest of the world see this, then we wonder why they aren't responsive to our proselytizing.

I don't want to hear how your church does this and that, helps so and so, blah, blah, blah...I'm weary with excuses for the body of Christ.

I felt the Holy Spirit for the first time in, well... maybe ever yesterday. The action of love was fully present in this mission. I can't begin to express the profound impact meeting these modern saints had on me.
In saying that, in calling them modern saints, I can feel my neck heat up in fear. Fear I've crossed an invisible line of blasphemy somewhere in the sand of my imagination... the end result of this year long quest for the true Christianity: Fear.

No longer will I tithe on-line.
Is that even tithing?
Does just clicking a mouse do anything other than offend a passionate Lord?
Yes we are to give, the more we have, the more of an obligation we have to our fellow man.

Not the church.

Who are these people kidding?
They were kidding me...
When was the last time I got my hands dirty? When was the last time I honestly, faithfully, lovingly dropped to my knees in the dark of the night and wept for my life, the lives of my children?
If all I have to do to receive absolution, is go to a Virtual World as my alter ego and type in my "Sin" in a glass house, then life really is just a game isn't it?

My question is, who's throwing the virtual rocks?

I commented on a Mega Church Pastors blog one time about his front page bio, in which he regales the joys of meeting his wife for lattes as one of his favorite pastimes.
I informed him, as a single mother, I could feed my boy and I for five days straight for the price of that famous latte. Not comfortably, but we wouldn't starve. Apparently this "Mega Man" believed my comment unworthy of rebuttal.

Am I the only one wondering what's wrong here, when the Pastor of a major Urban city's Mega Church, where the homeless could be a city themselves...shows his self absorption so mightily?

Yesterday afternoon saved my behind spiritually, made me, will make you, recall the true meaning of our lives as a Christians...it's not to worship God by tithing online...it's love our neighbor PERIOD.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with tithing online or buying $6.00 coffee drinks (if they're in your budget). The problem arises when we believe our lives are somehow more blessed and faithfilled, than those who's budget omits lattes' in lieu of the following:

one loaf of bread,
one dozen eggs,
one 1/2 gallon of milk

Comments

[Andy]

In defense of the latte,
sweet manna from heaven. When Moses crossed over the desert out of egypt there was in fact on the other side of the sea a huge green and white box store equipped inside with shining chrome machines made expressly for the extraction of the sacred bean. And thus and therefore from the masses came forth the first barista and all was good in the world once again and the people tho forced to wander the wilderness for forty years found fruitful the growing bean in the regions of the desert and harrar and yergacheff allowed the people to achieve ecstatic perfection around the fires.

[Chelsea]

I came across these comics yesterday, and copied down the urls, though I didn't know what I was saving them for.

http://devilspanties.keenspot.com/d/20020203.html
http://devilspanties.keenspot.com/d/20020204.html
http://devilspanties.keenspot.com/d/20020205.html

I'm sure you've heard the quote: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
-- Mahatma Gandhi

I'm enjoying following your thinking about all of this.

[S]

Does one need a physical building to worship?

I've put off and put off going to the actual location of the nearest Catholic church. Where people say do this, don't do that. The Vatican says...

I still call myself a Catholic, but do I really need to sit in the actual building for an hour or so? If what they say is true, God is everywhere. I've had periods in my life where God was right there in my bedroom at my mother's house when I was at my lowest point ever about three years ago. He was there in Wyoming when I was so homesick I didn't want to do anything but come back to Oklahoma. I believe he is here with me now, guiding me along the path that I should have taken years ago, but only saw fit to show me in early 2005.

Everyone's spiritual journey is different. It matters not how you get there, as long as you get there. And you can't get there without faith.