A Liturgy for Community

I liked this one so much I decided to borrow it for my own blog post. It’s by Douglas McKelvey and it’s for those who are seeking biblical community. I’ve been learning recently that there’s a reason why there are no Lone Ranger Christians in the Bible. We were designed and created for community. We’re better together. So here’s the post (with a link to the actual liturgy at the end):

"Good Father Who Gives Good Gifts
to His Children,

Like Abraham, in a step of faith
I have journeyed from the comforting
sameness of all I once knew—my family
and home, my friends, my neighborhood,
my church, my old school, my settled
rhythms and routines.

I have moved far from all
that was familiar, foundational,
and steadying. The distance is
disorienting in ways I did not foresee.

For now I have little to anchor my life.
That organic and interconnected web of
community was so deep a part of my identity.

In this new place
I do not know
where I fit.

I feel myself adrift.
So let my life here take root,
O Christ, and flourish again,
nurtured by your Spirit
and your people, and
bearing good fruit in time.
I do not yet have here the same
resources of vital relationship
to sustain me.

I feel like a weary pioneer recently arrived
with one meager pack of supplies,
who must now find a good place
to begin to carve out a homestead,
a place to sink new roots in hopes
of finding good soil for flourishing.
A meaningful life must somehow be
constructed in this open prairie
of undefined possibilities.

O God, I am lonely here.
But you are present with me.
I am unmoored,
but you are my anchor.
I am unsteady.
But you are my rock.

Now lead me into good community.
Let me forge new friendships.
Give me a place in this place.
Graft me in to your Body, and into
this community, in ways that I might be
blessed, and also be a blessing. Plant me
in places where I might find delight—in
serving and in receiving, in fellowship
and celebration, in sharing the many joys
and griefs and labors, and small and
meaningful moments of which friendships
and fellowships and the community
of saints are finally built.
So let my life here take root,
O Christ, and flourish again,
nurtured by your Spirit
and your people, and
bearing good fruit in time.

Use now even this time of disorientation
to draw my heart closer to yours; to teach
me how better to trust and hope
in your promises, how better
to rest in your love.

Let whatever hardships I endure
for a time be turned—under the sway
of your Spirit—into a more mindful
and active compassion extended toward
others who might suffer similar dismay.

Give me grace enough that I might,
even in my own season of discomfort,
still offer friendship and fellowship to
others who also struggle to find their place.
Let us build good community
and strong friendship
by serving one another.
So let my life here take root,
O Christ, and flourish again,
nurtured by your Spirit
and your people, and
bearing good fruit in time.
Amen."

https://rabbitroom.substack.com/p/a-liturgy-for-seeking-to-find-your

Spiritual Pivot

Starting this Sunday, my church will be temporarily meeting in a new location. We’re doing some upgrades and improvements to our sanctuary, so we can’t meet in the building for a few weeks. That means that we’ll be in the Fisher Center at Belmont University for a bit, then over to Sevier Park for an outdoor worship service.

It will be different, and different isn’t necessarily bad. Sometimes, different can be a good thing. I imagine people that have no connection to The Church at Avenue South might be intrigued by Sunday services on the Belmont campus. Some people might be driving by the park one Sunday and see a bunch of people gathered in worship. People who might not step foot in our present location might still hear the gospel and see the tangible love of Jesus on display.

That’s definitely a good thing. I know ideally in a perfect world, all the improvements would have been completed before we moved into the present location. But as my pastor always says, this is a beautiful but broken world we’re living in, so perfect doesn’t exist. Still, God can take what’s less than perfect and work good from it.

I imagine when the people of God first arrived into their new homes in Babylon, it took some adjusting. They had lost everything they knew and loved back home and were completely unfamiliar with their new surroundings in Babylon. But what did God say? He said to plant gardens and get married and have lots of kids. You’re going to be here for a while.

In our case, the exile is only for four weeks, but God is reminding us that the Church is not brick and mortar or a location. It’s the people of God gathered to proclaim the praises of God and live out the purposes of God through the preaching of the Word and worship. We are the living stones that make up God’s dwelling place in this world.

Right now around the world, people are gathering together in homes and in sheds and under a canopy of trees to worship. Some aren’t allowed to have large gatherings. Some don’t have a building to meet in. But they are serving and singing to and loving the same God as the ones meeting in megachurches. It’s the same Holy Spirit power that lives inside of them that lives inside the ones sitting in comfortable chairs in air-conditioned buildings.

It’s like in the Christmas Vacation movie when the kid asks how Santa will know where to find them since they’re staying with the Griswolds. Church isn’t like that. The Holy Spirit knows exactly where to go on Sunday when the people of God are temporarily displaced. God is still showing up and we can still experience that presence if we’re prepared and prayed up.

Thank You, Lord, that wherever Your people are gathered in Your name, even if it’s only two or three, You’re there in the midst of them. Make Your name famous wherever we are, whether it’s at 901 Acklen Avenue or 2020 Belmont Boulevard or 3021 Lealand Lane. Do what only You can do and draw people to Yourself and thank You that we get to be a part of it. Amen.

Transforming Not Conforming

“The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity” (2 Cor. 10:3-6, The Message).

I had a pastor who used to say regularly, “Don’t let the world teach you theology.”

I still think about that statement a lot, especially since so many believers get their theology from just about any any every source out there except for the Bible. We’re judging the Bible and God by our own humanistic standards of right and wrong. We have the mentality of saying that “God would never” because we would never, making ourselves the standard to which even God must abide.

But thankfully Romans 12:1-2 talks about being transformed not conformed. Being conformed means that eventually you cease looking like Christ and look exactly like the world. You end up with no message to give a sick society because you have become equally sick. But being transformed means that we no longer are carried along by every wind and wave. It means that we stand out as beacons of hope in a dark world that is desperately searching for meaning and a way out of the chaos it created.

Lord, help us no longer to be conformed to this world and the messages it is constantly sending us through the news and social media and advertising. Instead, transform us by the renewing of our minds through Your holy Word as we saturate ourselves with Scripture. May we be in the world but not of it. May we show the world not what it is but what it can be and be the means through which You can continue to rescue people out of a perishing world into a glorious Kingdom of Light. Amen.

God Knows

I went hiking at Radnor Lake State Park after work today. It’s been a while, and with all the damage from the ice storm a few months back, the park looked a bit different since the last time.

At least that’s my excuse. Somehow, I missed a turn or took a wrong turn and accidentally skipped part of the trail. I looked up expecting to see an incline but saw the road instead.

Then I remembered that I’ve had dreams about this sort of thing. I’ll be trying to get somewhere but I can never find it. Plus, in my dreams the scenery keeps changing so it’s basically impossible to find anything.

Life’s a bit like that. One day, you look up from scrolling social media or reading a book and wonder how you got where you are. Maybe you thought you’d still be working at the old job. Maybe you thought you’d be married by now. Or maybe you thought you’d have children by now.

It’s not so much that you’re lost, but you’re not where you wanted to be. Some days, it seems that your dreams are dead and you’ll never get to your desired destination. You wonder how you got where you are and if God is even on the job.

But God knows. He’s never taken by surprised by what happens to you. In fact, He works every little detail in your life for His glorious purposes. Maybe God’s saving you from something you can’t yet see. Or maybe God’s got a better destination in mind for you that you’re not ready to receive just yet.

God is big enough to accomplish all through you all that He requires of you. You need to show up and be prayed up and willing to do whatever He asks. Trust Him and above all trust His perfect timing. He will do it.

The Christ We Preach

“The One we preach is not Christ-in-a-vacuum, nor a mystical Christ unrelated to the real world, nor even only the Jesus of ancient history, but rather the contemporary Christ who once lived and died, and now lives to meet human need in all its variety today. To encounter Christ is to touch reality and experience transcendence. He gives us a sense of self-worth or personal significance, because he assures us of God’s love for us. He sets us free from guilt because he died for us, from the prison of our own self-centredness by the power of his resurrection, and from paralysing fear because he reigns, all the principalities and powers of evil having been put under his feet. He gives meaning to marriage and home, work and leisure, personhood and citizenship. He introduces us into his new community, the new humanity he is creating. He challenges us to go out into some segment of the world which does not acknowledge him, there to give ourselves in witness and service for him. He promises us that history is neither meaningless nor endless, for one day he will return to terminate it, to destroy death and to usher in the new universe of righteousness and peace” (John Stott).

That is the Christ we preach. This is the Jesus from the Bible, specifically from the Gospels. You can summarize it all up very neatly in John 3:16: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NLT).

If you go to a church that teaches you anything else, don’t walk out. Run. If your church preaches any kind of gospel other than the one from John 3:16 that Jesus and Paul preached, leave. Paul said that if anyone preached another gospel, even an angel from heaven, let that one be accursed.

The beauty of the true gospel is that it’s for everyone. It’s for anyone who will receive it. Anyone can be born again. Anyone can become a new creation. Anyone can be forgiven and set free from sin. Anyone can become a son or daughter of God through the adoption made possible through the cross.

That’s the Christ we preach and teach and worship and serve and love.

God Uses Broken Things

“The prophet Jeremiah said: ‘Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns’ (Jeremiah 4:3). You’ll never have the crop you ought to until you put the plow in, until the old clods are broken. Even the Lord Jesus Christ took the bread at the last supper and said: ‘This is My body which is broken for you.’ People throw broken things away. God uses broken things for His glory” (Adrian Rogers).

I’m thankful God uses broken things instead of throwing them away. God can turn broken circumstances for good for His glory. Best of all, God can use broken people to accomplish His purposes. In fact, He gravitates toward those kinds of people instead of those who have their act together (or at least act like they do).

If you pay attention to the characters in the Bible, you begin to realize that just about every one of them were hot messes. Every single one screwed up at least once or had a character flaw. That’s why the hero to look for in any given bible story isn’t David or Moses or Noah. It’s always God.

Face it. We’re all broken to one degree or another. None of us come close to being perfect. In fact, most of us are doing good to remember our own names some days. But the beautiful part is that God not only works in us in our weaknesses, but He intentionally works THROUGH our weaknesses. They’re the places where God’s strength is made perfect. Just ask Paul.

Remember when the world looks for the best looking or the most talented or the most ambitious, God is looking for the most available. He’s looking for the ones who have messed up multiple times but still show up with expectation, saying, “Here I am, God. Use me today.”

Those are the ones God chooses. Those are the ones God uses.

Waiting with Hope

“There are times when everything looks very dark to me——-so dark that I have to wait before I have hope.Waiting with hope is very difficult, but true patience is expressed when we must even wait for hope. When we see no hint of success but refuse to despair, when we see nothing but the darkness of night through our window yet keep the shutters open because stars may appear in the sky, and when we have an empty place in our heart yet will not allow it to be filled with anything less then God’s best—- that is the greatest kind of patience in the universe. It is the story of Job in the midst of the storm, Abraham on the road to Moriah, Moses in the desert of Midian, and the Son of Man in the garden of Gethsemane. There is no patience as strong as that which endures because we see ‘him who is invisible’ (Hebrews 11:27). It is the kind of patience that waits for hope.

Dear Lord, You have made waiting beautiful and patience divine.You have taught us that Your will should be accepted, simply because it is Your will. You have revealed to us that a person may see nothing but sorrow in his cup yet still be willing to drink it because of a conviction that Your eyes see further then his own.

Father, give me Your divine power—- the power of Gethsemane. Give me the strength to wait for hope—to look through the window when there are no stars. Even when my joy is gone, give me strength to stand victoriously in the darkest night and say, ‘To my Heavenly Father, the sun still shines.’ I will have reached the point of greatest strength once I have learned to wait for hope. Strive to be one of the few who walk this earth with the ever present realization– every morning, noon, and night that the unknown that people call heaven is directly behind those things that are visible(Galatians 5:5). By faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope” (George Matheson).

The Quiet Miracle

Today, I was listening to a podcast from Sally Lloyd-Jones, author of the Jesus Storybook Bible. She was conversing with Sir David Suchet, best known for his portrayal of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, about several topics of faith.

One topic of interest to me was when they talked about the miracle at Cana where Jesus turned the water into wine. David noted that one particular thing struck him about the miracle in that Jesus appeared to say or do nothing to bring it about. He didn’t offer a blessing. He didn’t wave His arms or lift up a prayer. He told the servants to fill up the large pitchers with water and when the taster got to them, the water had become wine.

It was a quiet miracle. Michael Card calls it the unmiraculous miracle. It’s notable that presumably no one at the wedding ever found out about the miracle except for the servants who poured the water. Not the wedding hosts or the guests. Not the bride or groom. Only the servants.

Jesus was quietly inaugurating His kingdom and only a few servants were in on it. I’m reminded of how the first people to witness the Incarnation were shepherds who had been out in the fields tending their flocks. The first witnesses of the resurrection were the same women whose testimony would not have counted in a court of law back in that day.

Again and again, Jesus chose the nobodies of the world to be the first to hear His good news. The gospel wasn’t given to the famous or the rich or the powerful at first, but to those discounted and outcast and disregarded by everyone else. But they were the ones Jesus chose.

Isn’t that how it works even now. To those who feel forgotten or left out, Jesus sees you. To those that nobody counts as worth anything, Jesus thought you were worth dying for. To those who sometimes feel like they’re taking up space in the world, Jesus has invited you to be a part of His Great Commission and to be His disciples. Even now, the gospel of Jesus is for you. Even you. Even me.

Maundy Thursday 2026

I love a good Maundy Thursday service, or at least the way my church does it. After growing up in old-school Baptist churches, I’ve loved being introduced to some more liturgical aspects of the calendar year, like Advent and Lent. I especially love the idea of commemorating the week leading up to Easter Sunday.

Our Maundy Thursday service is very low-key. We typically have one person playing music in an atmosphere of reflection and contemplation. There’s no sermon, only a rotating set of slides with verses from Isaiah 53 and other verses relating to the crucifixion. Two deacons stand in the front of the sanctuary ready to offer the elements of the Lord’s Supper.

To appreciate Easter Sunday more fully, it’s good to remember what led up to it. We need to walk through the last supper of Christ with His disciples. We need to see Him in the garden, praying that the cup might pass but also praying not my will but Thine. We need to relive the arrest, the trial, and the crucifixion.

It’s easy to read those passages in light of the resurrection, but I think we miss something. Those disciples were genuinely grieving the loss of their Lord. They had no idea that the bloodied body they saw buried in the tomb would rise out of it three days later. Sure, they heard what Jesus had told them, but it didn’t make sense, along with 90% of what Jesus spoke to them.

Easter means something because Jesus really was dead. Not to go into graphic gory detail, but most paintings and other depictions of Jesus on the cross don’t really do it justice. Isaiah 52 says that He wasn’t even recognizable as human. I still think that if you filmed the crucifixion with 100% biblical accuracy, it’d get an NC-17 or get censored because it would be way too gory and graphic for most people.

That’s what was in the tomb. That’s why Easter is a big deal. Easter means that there’s no such thing as a lost cause or a hopeless situation. Easter means that the same death that couldn’t hold Jesus in the grave will not have the last word. Jesus has overcome death, the grave, and hell and the victory is already won.

I don’t want to rush into the celebration this time. I want to take it all in as best as I can. I want to weep with the disciples and remember that Jesus wept over Lazarus as well, knowing full well that He was about to call him out of his own grave. Easter means that just as Jesus endured the cross for the joy that awaited, so we can endure anything when we know that Easter Sunday is on the other side of our suffering.

The Rock of Ages

I learned something else new today. Or at least I made a connection that I hadn’t previously.

It’s from a daily email I get with snippets of writings from the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, former pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee.

He starts off by describing the Israelites wandering in the desert, complaining as usual. This time it was a lack of water, which is a very real threat when you’re in the desert because the human body can only go without water for a very short amount of time and water sources in your typical desert are scarce.

But God leads them to Rephidim and commands Moses to strike a large rock with his staff. Lo and behold, water comes forth from the rock, enough to quench the thirst of every last one of the Israelites. 1 Cointhians 10:4 say that they “all drank from the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock, and that Rock was Christ.”

Fast forward to Jesus on the cross, the Rock of ages cleft for me (as the old hymn goes). What happened? After He died, the soldier stuck a spear into His side and what came out? Blood and water. Isaiah 53 says that He was stricken and smitten by God because of our sins, and what flowed out was water that gives life.

He had said earlier to the woman at the well that He was the Living Water, and whoever drank from Him would never thirst again. Once again, the Old Testament is pointing to Jesus for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. We only have to know where to look and what to look for.

I’m thankful every day that the Rock of Ages was crushed and smitten for us. I’m thankful that He laid down His life for His people so that we could live. I hope I never get tired of hearing the Easter story as much as the Christmas story, because they both point to a Savior who came for me to rescue me from myself and my sin. When we couldn’t get to God, He came to us.

Hallelujah! What a Savior!