{"id":114,"date":"2011-09-30T14:21:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-30T13:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/the-hole-in-our-gospel\/"},"modified":"2011-09-30T14:21:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-30T13:21:00","slug":"the-hole-in-our-gospel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/the-hole-in-our-gospel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hole in Our Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Friday, September 30, 2011<\/p>\n

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“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:40<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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I just finished reading a very interesting, good, thought provoking, truthful and challenging book, all at the same time!\u00a0 <\/span>“The Hole in our Gospel”, by Richard Stearns, starts out by asking the question, “What does God expect of us?\u00a0 <\/span>What is the Christian faith about?\u00a0 <\/span>Going to church every Sunday, saying grace before meals, and avoiding the most serious sins \u2013 or does God expect more?”<\/p>\n

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This is a simple question, but it is extremely difficult to answer!\u00a0 <\/span>I grew up in a Christian home, attending church on a regular basis, I went to Sunday school and youth group, I volunteered my time teaching the younger classes, I tried to avoid the most serious sins\u2026but it wasn’t until college that I truly understood what it meant to be a Christian.\u00a0 <\/span>As it should be, my relationship with Christ is still forming, and developing and challenging me to a whole new level, daily.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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In this book, Sterns discusses an experiment in which a handful of seminary students went through all sixty-six books of the Bible and underlined every passage and verse that dealt with poverty, wealth, justice, and oppression.\u00a0 <\/span>Then one of the student’s took a pair of scissors and physically cut every one of those verses out of the Bible.\u00a0 <\/span>The result of this experiment was a volume in tatters that barely held together.\u00a0 <\/span>This Bible was literally full of holes.\u00a0 <\/span>Sterns challenge in this book is for each of us look beyond the walls of our churches and work together in reclaiming the world for Christ’s kingdom.\u00a0 <\/span>He asks the questions “What if we actually demonstrated God’s love for the world instead of just talking about it?\u00a0 <\/span>What if we embraced the whole gospel of loving God AND loving our neighbors?”<\/p>\n

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I am not trying to write a book review.\u00a0 <\/span>I simply want to discuss some points that really got me thinking and are challenging me to ask the question for myself am I really doing all that the Lord expects from me?\u00a0 <\/span>Or is there more that I could, or should be doing?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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As I shared, it wasn’t until college that my relationship with Christ really began to be formed and shaped.\u00a0 <\/span>I went on my first mission’s trip to Nicaragua my junior year of college, and the very first night, I remember be taken so far out of my comfort zone that within the first few hours of being there, I prayed to the Lord, that as long as he got me through my 10 days here, I promised I would NEVER do anything like this again!\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>How could I have known that was just the beginning?\u00a0 <\/span>In my 10 days, I saw things I could have never imagined.\u00a0 <\/span>There were families living in the dump, breathing, smelling and being covered in the smoke from the burning piles of trash everyday.\u00a0 <\/span>There were young families with babies and small children.\u00a0 <\/span>The kids went to school on the dump\u2026they were eating and finding what they could from the piles of garbage!\u00a0 <\/span>My entire view of my “perfect” world was shattered, in a course of just a couple of days!\u00a0 <\/span>How could I go back to my comfortable life after seeing and knowing that this is the way people lived?<\/p>\n

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After that trip, I returned to Nicaragua a second time, and then found myself in other missions’ related jobs and trips over the course of the next 6 years.\u00a0 <\/span>What happens when you pray a prayer like “I will NEVER\u2026?”\u00a0 <\/span>The first night, on my first ever missions trip, my heart was broken!\u00a0 <\/span>Ever since that first prayer, I found myself being challenged to do all that I can with to help the less fortunate.\u00a0 <\/span>Ever since that first prayer, I felt the Lord beginning to call me to something more than my “comfortable” life.<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/span>One of the things that kept being repeated in this book was “Let my heart be broken for the things that break your heart (God).”\u00a0 <\/span>This really challenged me because, even though Blake and I now find ourselves living in the center of some of the most challenging sights, I know that after just a few hours, I get to LEAVE these areas to come back home to my secure property, to my house with running water and consistent power.\u00a0 <\/span>Do I always leave a sight with my heart broken?\u00a0 <\/span>Do I always leave having done all that I can for that time?\u00a0 <\/span>We find ourselves being challenged everyday!\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

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While of course we do not fully speak a language enough to communicate, we have to be sure we are sharing the love of Christ with everyone we meet, no matter how we do it.\u00a0 <\/span>Ultimately our call is to spread the gospel message and Christ’s love to everyone.\u00a0 <\/span>Am I doing that, when I go to a small village, knowing that since I don’t speak the language, it’s easy to just stand to the side and watch?\u00a0 <\/span>Am I doing that when I back away from holding the hands of the little kids because they might be filled with “germs”?\u00a0 <\/span>Am I doing that, when my attention is on how soon can I leave this place and be back to my “comfortable” house?\u00a0 <\/span>As our ministry in Lubumbashi continues, my prayer moving forward, is exactly this\u2026”Lord please let my heart break for the things that break your heart.”\u00a0 <\/span>I hope that I can open my heart completely to every person that I meet, and show Christ’s love, even if it’s holding the hands of the kids, or sitting with the ladies and talking to them, using my few words that I know\u2026or even if its being completely involved in my surroundings, no matter how long that visit will last.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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My heart is not always broken, and I do not always pray how the Lord will use my presence in this moment, to help those around me.\u00a0 <\/span>But that is now a challenge I must be regularly finding myself doing.\u00a0 <\/span>Prayer is a powerful resource, and if I am not praying regularly, I am not going to be able to face my challenge with strength and genuine love for those around me!<\/p>\n

If you haven’t read this book, I hope you will consider it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>There is much more to the book than what I have written about, but I believe you will find yourself being challenged in a “hole” new way!\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, September 30, 2011 \u00a0 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:40 \u00a0 I just finished reading a very interesting, good, thought provoking, truthful and challenging book, all at the same time!\u00a0 “The Hole in our Gospel”, by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}