"Transition............................."

I began a new book the other night, a fictional work that takes the reader on a journey through history; and, somehow, its initial pages reminded me that the Church has known its own “evolution”, its own bit of metamorphosis, due to nothing more than “time marches on”. I speak not of the doctrinal changes it has manufactured along the way, although its theology adjustments were most certainly also borne out of what I suggest. Rather I point to man, himself, and the fact that environment, technology, and life in the living thereof all play a part in its identity as we know it from whatever perspective we now occupy. In its heart, of course, in spite of whatever mess we tend to have made of the structure in general, yet exists His reality, “tugging on the anchor line” in an attempt to salvage as much as possible; and there sits my bunch, in the middle of things, no singular reflection of Truth and, in no way, the same image of Christ that my wife’s parents knew thirty-plus years ago. The question for me, then, is not just whether His presence can yet be found in our midst, but whether we, as individual temples for the Holy Ghost, are vessels through which He might witness in the comings and goings of who and what we are outside the sanctuary. I do not speak in terms of taking some “three-point” sermon to the men at the mission, the kids at the Detention Center. I do not refer to arrogantly charging whomsoever with our particular view of the Scripture, swinging a sword in the name of evangelizing the heathen. I want to know that I hear His voice in my interactions with those who share my work schedule, the waitresses and busboys at the restaurants we frequent, the hungry, the downtrodden, the everyday people who step into my next breath and are in need of Him. The Gospel was never about the size of our fellowship, the acreage we own, or how beautifully the choir fills the rafters. From the beginning, the message has been His to preach, His to confirm. So it shall be in the end……