You make some excellent points!

We ARE responsible to cultivate our relationship–both with God and with His family.

1 John warns repeatedly that we cannot say “I love God” while being hateful (or indifferent) to our brother. Jesus instructed us to even love our enemies!

My dad often has expressed his frustration about the Sunday morning “Hi how are you” clubs that many of us have dubbed “going to church”. It is pretty disgusting how we so often focus heavily on “order of service”, “uplifting songs”, “programs”, and “obeying” a given set of rules (church bylaws, The “Big Ten”, Sermon on the Mount, take your pick) while ignoring the direct order that Jesus gave to LOVE one another as Christ has loved each of us.

It isn’t that we ought to ignore the need to have “good theology”, but that good theology should be complemented by lives that are genuinely changed from having a life-giving encounter with Life Himself! If not, then we are in danger of being nothing more than noise makers as per 1 Corinthians 13.

Christ’s body (the Church) is not meant to be a museum where we all display how “perfect” we have become as Christians. Nor is it to be a lecture hall to constantly remind us of how unworthy we are to receive His attention. That is an important foundation, but we cannot get stuck there.

Christ’s church is a war-zone, front battle line hospital that is constantly sending out scouts who will bring to the Master Physician those who are blinded, maimed and bleeding to death. And we, as His hands and feet, are to minister healing Truth with His loving care so that others may be introduced to the Life He offers.

It is so frustrating to me that we as a group will become so stuck in stuff like “how separate are we to be?” because if we really know the Lord and have a vibrant, living relationship with Him, we have His springs of pure, Living water overflowing out of us, and the stink of this world cannot stick even as we dive into the filth to help pull others out of the sewage.

The Christian walk of faith is not about physical rules to “not taste, not handle, not touch”. It is about a heart attitude of humble obedience to constantly rely on our Father to show us what is right in ANY given circumstance. The only way that can happen is when we strive to know Him with all of our hearts.

He’s Daddy. He wants us to come to HIM and rest our souls in HIM and He has given us the Scriptures as a means by which we can meet with HIM!

I would be careful to consider that it often does not exist between believers, either….we like coffee and donuts after 9 oclock service, but that’s not it. Fellowship requires cultivation and care in order to transcend the hi, how are you, God is good Sunday morning schmooze. It requires really KNOWING each other, which in my experience is a difficult thing for Christians to do – judgement often supercedes compassion when the needy are right up close (speaking for myself, with humility, here). My need for true fellowship is often veiled by my embarassment, which I often call privacy.

No, I haven’t heard of that–I may have to order it!

I haven’t read it since college, but it still influences the way I think about these issues. It sets up five different paradigms that Christians have used over the centuries in trying to understand these issues.

Gabby, I’d suggest that next time a situation like your sister’s reception comes up, you pray with an open heart about God’s will for you in that particular situation. If your sister would be hurt by your absence, could it be that your attending such a function would be a way of showing your love, and by extension, God’s love (since your family knows Who you love and Who you stand for)? You wouldn’t have to dance if you feel it’s not right.

As mature Christian adults, shouldn’t we be spiritually strong enough to be able to withstand temptations if they come in the line of doing something God might want us to do for someone else’s sake?

Didn’t Jesus do that for us?