"Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking;
if you hear my voice and open the door,
I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me."
- Revelation 3:20

I just started reading a book entitled Becoming a Blessed Church by N.Graham Standish, pastor of Calvin Presbyterian Church in Zelienople, PA. In the first chapter of the book Rev. Standish introduces us to what he calls "Rational Functionalism:"

Rational functionalism is the tendency of denominations, their congregations, and their leaders to subscribe to a view of faith and church rooted in a restrictive, logic-bound theology that ignores the possibility of spiritual experiences and miraculous events, while overemphasizing a functional practice disconnected from an emphasis on leading people to a transforming experience of God. On the one hand, rational functionalism turns faith into an intellectual endeavor rooted in an excessively rational, empirical, quasi-scientific approach. (p.15)

He compares and contrasts this understanding of church with what he calls "A Blessed Church:"

In blessed churches, people not only expect to experience God; the do experience God. Their expectations open the door to God, who stands knocking. They expect to hear the Creator's voice guiding the church to what it is called to be and do. They expect to encounter and be blessed by Christ? They expect the power of God and the Holy Spirit to flow through their lives and the church's, blessing them in so many ways. (p.18)

In his description of the "Blessed Church," I think Standish hits upon a profound implication for all us in the church today: do we expect to experience God in the church? When you show up for worship on Sunday morning, do you expect to have an experience of God? When you pray to you expect God to really listen? When you study Scripture do you expect to meet God in the pages of that text? When you step outside the doors of church as a disciple of Jesus Christ, do you expect to encounter God in faces of your family, coworkers, classmates, neighbors - all the children of God in our community?

Do we really expect to encounter God today? Or is this faith journey simply an intellectual exercise or some kind of moral test? Is our faith based upon experiences of God and the relationships that develop out of those experiences? Or is our faith about academic inquiry and following the rules and morals of said inquiry?

Do we treat God as a tangible presence and reality in our lives (and our world), or do we treat God as an idea or thought - some kind of entity we encounter when we die, but not tangible in the here and now?

As you continue to journey to the empty tomb of Easter Sunday, ask yourself the question: "do I expect to encounter a living God as I travel down the path of faith?" As you go to church to worship ask yourself: "do I except to encounter the living God in this worship experience?" What are your expectations?

Yours in Christ,
Pastor Troy