Ancient Anglican

To follow Jesus and to maintain our identity in Christ and not the Baals of this world, requires the endless intentionality that Elijah puts before us.

Elijah ends the drought and takes his revenge upon Jezebel’s prophets of Baal.

In the story of the widow, we should see Advent. We have maginalized people doing everyday things in ordinary places. Yet through them, God invades enemy-occupied territory to bring dead things back to life.

See the apocalyptic battle between Yahweh and Baal (God/Satan, Good/Evil) begin to develop. Notice the faith, as it waxes and wanes, in both Elijah and the Widow. See the typology of the coming resurrection of the son.  

The Elijah stories provide us with a wonderful follow-up to Tim Sorens’s book Everywhere You Look about how the church can form an alternative community in the world. The stories also provide us with another way of walking through and understanding Advent.

For this week’s lesson, we are going to share our own personal experiences and insight into how and where the Spirit is moving in Myrtle Beach. I want us to share the opportunities that we have to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world.

By prioritizing Connections we are fighting back against the storm of individualism and polarization that is overtaking our society. Every good thing that we seek to do in the world, should start with these Connections

If the church is to win over hearts and minds, to bring about change at the neighborhood level, and to heal our divisions, we must be present in our neighborhoods and to think long-term.

Instead of focusing on needs and problems, what if we focused on the gifts and strengths of those in our community? What if we decide to look for assets and not needs? As Soren puts it, let’s focus “on what’s strong instead of what’s wrong.”

As we open our eyes and engage in sacred curiosity, we should not limit ourselves to those who look like us, vote like us, or even believe like us.

Being part of the same team means moving from isolation to awareness, polarization to curiosity, and fragmentation to integration.

Church divisions, particularly those that mirror the divisions in society, make the gospel a lie. If we vilify our fellow Christians and create a community based on a mutual dislike of the other, then what do we have to offer the world as an alternative way of being.