The church stinks. It doesn’t have to stink. As a matter of fact, it often hasn’t stunk. The church always has the potential to be a wonderful aroma like bacon, eggs and coffee. The church is meant to be a joy to inhale…even if you aren’t hungry.
Many in our community have been hurt by the church. Some of us have been involved in a congregation and experienced pain and disillusionment. Others of us have had just enough of a taste of Christianity to support the stereotypes of church as judgmental, harsh and divisive. But at Silverlake Church we are experiencing something else. Our church smells different!
The words of one of the earliest Christians are starting to make some sense to us. Fourteen centuries before the Sufi mystic Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili ran across the coffee bean in Ethiopia, a man wrote a letter to a church in Greece, saying ”…we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ…” (2 Corinthians 2:15a) Could this be what God is brewing among us at Silverlake?
Over the next three Sundays we are going to talk about the essence of this aroma. It is an aroma of security and rootedness, not judgment. It is an aroma of the whole hearted pursuit of love instead of self-promotion. It is the aroma of truly desiring to work out our differences rather than divisiveness. This is the aroma of Christ. This is what God is “cooking up” in our midst.
I look forward to dialoguing with you over the next three Sundays! But feel free to comment now on this site or on the Silverlake church facebook site. Let the conversation begin because God already has!
