Mike’s Blog

I drove down to Columbia on Thursday morning for a meeting of the Committee that talks about Covenant Point Camp. It doesn’t seem write to call this a ‘camp meeting’ without speaking in tongues or something, but it was a camp committee meeting I guess. I am glad to be a part of this committee because Christian Camping is so very important. Many of us had experiences of God’s grace and love at a camp.

I remember, and perhaps I will share this in a sermon one day, crying into a sock. It was the final night of camp, during worship. The music was going along, and, perhaps after communion, I was praying. I realized, as I would learn later in the words of Paul Tillich, that I was accepted by God. “Accept that you are accepted,” said Tillich in a sermon. Well, at camp that night, I realized that God did love me and accept me. And I began to cry. A lot. I was a little embarrased, so I looked around for a tissue. Nothing. I looked down at my shoes and thought, “Oh well. God accepts me. These people will just have to deal.” I removed my shoe and wiped my nose with my sock.

In the wake of God’s grace, being proper doesn’t count for too much.

Thanks to Greg Marshall’s help and our terrific church’s website, I can post to a blog. ‘Blog’ is a word that has crept into our everyday language, if not into our dictionaries, and I admit I can’t precisely define it. But, as you may already know, blogs are like online-diaries that people want you to read. So, thanks for reading this. I hope it helps you feel connected to our church and to what I’m up to.

Technology is an interesting thing. I am typing on a computer, but across the room looking at my enviously, is an old green Olympia manual typewriter. It is portable, weighing only 15 pounds. I bought it at a garage sale for $5. The computer cost considerably more than $5 but also weighs less and helps me do more. I have already arranged pictures in a slideshow for the White Gift Service (Sunday December 10th at 5:30).

Our society seems to function in what Jacques Ellul called the technical or technological imperative. You see this in the mall. If there’s something new, we have to have it. And that’s because it was something that someone figured out how to make or produce–and they had to produce it! If you’re a movie buff, see Jurassic Park on this theme. If your a book buff, well, I guess you could read Jurassic Park or Shelley’s Frankenstein. The technological imperative is active in our world.

And it smashes up against us in the Advent season. I want it. I want it. I remember, one of my first moments of church leadership was when I sang in the church choir at age 8. My line was “I want a watch” in a song that’s refrain is still fresh in my mind. “I want/presents by the score/I want/lots of things for me/I want/more and more and more/I want everything/I see.”

This advent, let us remember that Christ’s imperative to us is different from those in the marketplace, labs, or factories. Christ’s imperative is the only one that counts: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34)

This command is Christ’s love imperative, let’s call it. Everything else is in a lesser tense.