Wonderful worship, good food, delightful fellowship and conversations, catching up with old friends and making new ones, inspiring and challenging messages, stimulating video montages, lots of heart-warming stories—Multiply 2022 is now history! With the focus on thriving, there seem to be endless places to explore.
But for this summary, I will share my reflections on two threads. The first is Brad Roth’s three sessions on thriving churches in rural communities. I connected with his first session on Understanding Rural since that is where I’ve lived most of my life. I suspect that most of us in CMC would identify with a rural background and the accompanying cultural and moral aspects of community that he pictured for us. As Christians, we need to learn to “notice and value,” to see the beauty of the place Jesus has us, to connect with and love our community.
The rather disappointing caveat [is] that the wood is always wet!...We must “keep praying that we pray!”
Brad’s second session focused on More with Less in God’s Country and the tension which so often exists around what exactly it is that we prioritize in our places of life and ministry. I appreciated the way Brad drew the need for both more and less. On one hand, we work to make God’s name famous, while on the other hand, we surrender to him and “let things be as they are.” “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5b NASB). And the question, “How many good things can you do without going crazy!?”
Brad finished in Session Three with How to Light a Fire, looking at prayer in the rural church. “Prayer is always a component of thriving churches.” He challenged us to be “fire blowers,” with the rather disappointing caveat that the wood is always wet! If our churches are to thrive, we must “keep praying that we pray!” Prayer transfigures our vision, our work, and our relationship with God. From Luke 10, there is really only “one thing needful” (v. 42 KJV).
The other thread that I would like to look at is Wes Furlong’s two messages, again looking at thriving churches. The first was Characteristics of a Thriving Church. Jesus wants to give you and me a new imagination to see his Kingdom come on earth in the most unimaginable places! When here, Jesus crossed many cultural boundaries, and now he calls us to join him, to cooperate with him, to trust him to give us his vision.
Wes concluded on Sunday morning with a look at God’s Mission for the Church. There are two ditches that we need to stay between. We tend to either isolate and not get out of the salt shaker, or we assimilate and our message becomes so diluted as to be of no effect. For me, Wes did a superb job of describing Daniel’s experience in Babylon. He was committed to learning the culture and the language, but because of God’s commands to Israel, he couldn’t eat the food. For you and me, like Daniel, it is a matter of discernment and prudence. Daniel never pursued position or influence. He “gave space to the sovereignty of God.” It can be easy for me to want to fix things or make problems go away! The reality is that it is not all about me or all up to me—God is still on the throne!
Daniel’s Hebrew name means “God is my judge.” In Babylon, he was given the name Belteshazzar, meaning “Ba’al’s prince,” or “Bel will protect.” For Daniel, his name was a constant reminder of his identity, his relationship to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For me the question is, as I trust Jesus to help me live in the world but not of it, to not be isolated or assimilated, what is my Babylon that is trying to give me its identity? Can I live so deeply embraced by the Father that I can become like Daniel, a model Babylonian, but keep my identity as a beloved son?
