"Monday Soup."
So, on Monday morning, you can plan on a recap of what God did on the weekends at Prairie Lakes Church.
Now, since its been awhile since we've actually done this, I think it'd be a shame to start with this week and leave out last week. So, you're gonna get two weeks of the Monday Soup, since we've now completed our first two weeks of our series "Big Questions."
Last week Pastor John addressed the question of "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?" Here was our challenge: while we knew that we needed to answer this question with sound biblical theology, we also knew that people were going to need more than just theology when it came to this question. It's one thing for my mind to grasp the biblical framework for why bad things happen, but it's another thing for me to be transparent with God about my fears, sadness, anger and everything else that's wrapped up when bad things happen to me.
So, we saw a transformational moment at the end of our services that entailed a few things:
- an inspired risk of calling people to be transparent about what has happened to them by writing and pinning cards on a cork board up front;
- a portion of unprogrammed space in our services for people to sit and reflect, come forward, pray, grieve, etc.; and
- a blurry ending in which their wasn't some big "hooray for God" and "see you next week", but instead we asked people to leave quietly and gave permission for the rest to stay and sit with God in this moment. We set the environment with some appropriate lighting a music to create a reflective, reverent feel.
In short: people responded, and God was honored.
Both campuses combined, we had over 150 people who took advantage of that space, filled out a card, came forward, and pinned it to the board. At Waterloo, 40 people stayed for over an hour after the services ended... just dealing with their "stuff" before God in community. Long story short: God will always honor a risk to create space for Him to work.
And now on to this week.
John, Chris, and myself (at Cedar Falls) and Ron, Brad Graber, and John Church (at Waterloo) sat and took questions live at each campus via both pen/paper and text messages on God, the Bible, life, the church... you name it. Though we had a few technical difficulties at both campuses, those were dwarfed in light of the overwhelmingly positive feedback we got from people after each of our services. This weekend we answered some of the biggies:
- What does the Bible say about homosexuality and how we should relate to homosexuals?
- How do you reconcile free will and predestination?
- Is evolution incompatible with the Genesis account?
But we also addressed some others like:
- What does Prairie Lakes Church believe about the role of women in the church?
- Why don't we have a cross in the Worship Center?
- Does God have a "perfect person" in mind for everyone looking for a mate?
- Is there a "right" political party for Christians?
If you missed it, hop on to www.prairielakeschurch.org and click on the services tab to take a look at what we answered this weekend. The video should be available by this Tuesday. We'll be doing this exact same thing again in two weeks in the May 8-9 services.
Overall, it was a privilege to be up on a panel with our two senior leaders - not just because they are learned and well-thought out followers of Christ, but also because they are authentic - they choose to be transparent on issues that can sometimes be divisive. I think that makes God's heart happy.
Stay tuned for next week when we recap Week 3 of our Big Questions series at which Pastor Carl will be answering the question: "Can the Bible be trusted?"
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