Dreams

Being a preacher I suppose that it is expected that most of my dreams are about church.  I would estimate that about 80% of my dreams are related in one way or another to life in church and ministry.  Some are the pleasant dreams of being with people from church in worship or specific church activities.  I have a sort of recurring dream in which I am unprepared but have something I am supposed to do.  In these dreams I will be getting ready to preach and can’t find my Bible or notes, or I have come to a formal church setting and I’m wearing jeans and a tee shirt. I have the opposite dream in which I’m formally dressed and everyone is wearing beach attire.

I have another recurring dream, in fact, I had a version of it last night.  I was at a big steeple church (a large prominent church in a downtown area) that was in serious decline.  There were the forms of worship and the rituals of church life carried on by a few angry and disgruntled people, but no life or joy.  The theme of these dreams seems to be “Make our congregation great again”.  In these dreams there is an angry expectation that the congregation will again be big and powerful and imposing so that the people can be proud of being a part of this church.  Typically, in these dreams there is one person who personifies the whole congregation.  They are physically large with a strong, dominant personality, but a near complete lack of grace.  In last night’s version, this dominant personality was insisting that the church open a casino and brothel in order to attract larger crowds.  (I think this part was influenced by a book I am currently reading that offers some pretty critical thoughts about the current American church).  As my conflict with this person escalated I woke up to realize it was just a dream and that I was not going back to sleep. I went to my study and began the day a little earlier than usual.  

Two things happened after I woke up.  First was my daily reading including Jesus’ life verse, Isaiah 61:1-3

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

Because the Lord anointed me

To bring good news to the humble;

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

To proclaim release to captives

And freedom to prisoners;

To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord

And the day of vengeance of our God;

To comfort all who mourn,

 

To grant those who mourn in Zion,

Giving them a garland instead of ashes,

The oil of gladness instead of mourning,

The cloak of praise instead of a disheartened spirit.

So they will be called oaks of righteousness,

The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. 

Jesus fulfilled this passage in His first body, the one born in Bethlehem, and He wants to do it through His second body, the one born on Pentecost, the church.  This doesn’t require great attendance on Sundays, nor an impressive building downtown with a big steeple.  The inadequacies or perceived inadequacies that any congregation may have, need not prevent it from being the Body of Christ where she is.  We can, at times, be too impressed by things that really make no difference in actually being the Body of Christ.  In fact, wherever we go today we can live out Jesus’ life verse.  

The second thing that dawned on me was how thankful I am for Crossroads.  We are far from a perfect congregation.  If we chose to, we could make a list of everything wrong with our church, beginning with “The preacher”.  That list would go on to include everyone and everything.  We like to say that ‘we want to be a place for less than perfect people’.  That is because that is who and what we are.  We are far from being perfect, far from being all we need or want to be, but I am thankful for these people who are committed to see “Thy Kingdom come and Thy will be done” in our imperfect lives and congregation.

 Early in the 1900’s, a bigshot businessman was on his way home to New York City.  He walked into a small town train station, looked around with some contempt and sarcastically asked the station manager, “Is this Grand Central Station?”  Without looking up from his book the manager said, “No, this isn’t Grand Central Station.  But you are on the right track.”  Crossroads may have a way to go but, “we are on the right track”.  For that I am thankful, very, very thankful.