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Retreat: Mountain View Baptist

Hickory, NC

Date: March 10 - March 11

marydemuth

I’ve heard this statement uttered in several chu

I’ve heard this statement uttered in several church contexts over the years, and it never felt right to me.

While it is always good and right to contextualize the gospel for your particular setting (Paul becomes all things to all people, for example), it is dangerous to dance near sin’s line.

We are not to even have the appearance of evil, and the Bible is clear that we are called to live holy, set apart lives. So to blur the line between sin and non-sin is problematic. Jesus did not sin, but began the most powerful movement on earth. And when we place sin as the center of our strategy (or coming close to it), it becomes easier and easier to justify wrongful actions and motivations. “Oh, we are doing this iffy thing because it will win people.” That’s a dangerous place to be.

The deeper issue is our obsession with numbers, which seems to have come from the church growth movement that originated in the 90s, as far as I can tell. There, numbers became the sole determinant of growth, and if you weren’t growing, something was wrong with you. We created systems (baseball diamonds, for one) to measure our growth and ensure people who came through our doors started a journey of discipleship.

Problem is, discipleship is hard to measure. It’s personal. It’s one-on-one. It’s relational. When Willow Creek went through their “why aren’t our people growing in Christ” study several years ago, the result was jarring. They were a mile wide and an inch deep. And when people started growing in Christ, they left because there was nowhere in their existing model to really grow as a disciple.

Jesus didn’t call us to make converts, according to Matthew 28:18-20. He called us to make disciples—which means we sacrifice for the sake of others. We pour into people. We watch ourselves and our own proclivity to sin. Discipleship is messy. It’s not easily programmed on a Sunday event. It’s difficult to measure, nor is it flashy. But it’s good.

We all know someone affected by sexual abuse. Sadl

We all know someone affected by sexual abuse. Sadly, the secular media has shown more compassion than the church toward sexual abuse survivors. There is a holy reckoning unfolding before us in the church. People are fed up with secrecy, covering up, and the sheer proliferation of abuse—both inside and outside the church.

"It’s time for the church to become what it should be: a place of security, not shame; humility, not pride. By standing with survivors of sexual abuse, we can build a community of kindness and restoration—a place where God’s people are healed and made whole.

Get We Too exclusively on Amazon.

A quick few hours in Venice, Italy. One word: ench

A quick few hours in Venice, Italy. One word: enchanting.

Beautiful day in Bassano del Grappa. The sun snuck

Beautiful day in Bassano del Grappa. The sun snuck out from behind foreboding clouds. Perfect Italian experience. (Yes, I had pasta).

My luggage has been lost for two days, and normall

My luggage has been lost for two days, and normally I wouldn’t worry that much about it, but last night I realized that my journal was in that suitcase. And I started to mourn.

So much of my life has been poured out this year on the pages of that book. So much processing. So much prayer. So much wrestling and wrangling with what has befallen my husband Patrick and me. I would have really been sad to no longer have that history of the year.

So when the front desk person knocked on my door this morning, I gasped and laughed and thanked him. What a joy! I felt like the lady in the gospels who had lost her coin, only to find it and rejoice exceedingly.

My journal is back in my hands (along with some chocolate, which is always nice). And I don’t have to wash my clothes in the sink :).

While flying from Geneva to Venice, I prayed, aski

While flying from Geneva to Venice, I prayed, asking God why he didn’t do the usual maintenance on me in Switzerland. Usually, the dross of the year falls away as I walk the picturesque foothills of the Jura mountains, or as writers pray for me. But this time, while it was a fruitful experience, I could not find the solace I needed.

I sensed God saying to me, “You can’t heal from grief in a location of grief.” And it made sense to me.

Switzerland has been my joyful respite, a comma in a run-on sentence of my life. But a shifting of things at the locale had made my happy place more a location of ambiguity. New grief lived there. And in the midst of that grief, I could not find a healing foothold.

It’s the same for us all. We have a hard time healing if we are still in a physical location of grief. The problem for me is that when I am home, I am reminded of the grief of church hurt. The whole town seems to be circling around my former church.

The solution?

I’m not sure, but it must involve creating a safe haven where I am. Perhaps that’s helpful for you, too.

It’s like an open wound that keeps festering. You must first bandage that wound so that contaminants cannot infiltrate the wound. You have to separate the wound from the environment. And then when it’s healed, it can interact again with the air.

To heal, friend, seek a safe place. As in my case (and I assume this may be true for you), that safe place might not be evident, or it may be so obvious that it’s right in front of you.

If I were to guess today, my safe place is actually people: my husband, children, and my group of friends.

May you find yours again.

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