"Witness...................."

Monday morning I stood in Bob Evans talking with an acquaintance known to me only through our mutual habit of dining in that particular restaurant. The entranceway was packed with people waiting to be seated and, he being the pastor of a small Baptist church, about forty members to be exact, conversation turned to life within an ecclesiastical community. It lasted no longer than about ten minutes, not enough time for us to cover such subject in detail; but, people being people, the scenario doesn’t change all that much, whether membership is counted by tens or ten hundreds. My own experience has known three different assemblies during the course of over four decades, one an inner city outreach in the “ghetto” area of Cincinnati, one a refuge attempted for ten years when my spirit festered from various issues encountered over time through a relationship held with the third. How Catholicism works is beyond my perspective; but even if the overall picture isn’t quite the same, humanity remains humanity. Whether immersed or sprinkled, Christ “in” me in no way eliminates the condition. ”Church”, however, from the beginning, was never about super saints gathered together under one roof, unity somehow accomplished through a common credo, personalities and character instantaneously erased, conversion equating to a complete make-over. The work ordained by the Cross and the subsequent resurrection is a renewing of the original schematics, a covenant wherein we are once more vessels with an inner connection. We are “new creatures” only in the sense of having acquired that “hook-up” with the Holy Ghost and any “change” otherwise is an on-going project, a matter of His rod and staff going with us down the path. What we need to learn, if the world is to be convinced of His reality, is that an outer veneer self-manufactured out of denominational righteousness to represent the Gospel does not come close to simply walking in truth, allowing the Spirit, Himself, to emerge and be manifested in our everyday affairs. If Jesus truly conquered the grave, if God now indeed inhabits His people, the evidence should speak for itself, living water overflowing to reach beyond the sanctuary……