Christ Cafe. A ministry in the mountains. →
So this is interesting. I came to Panera looking for the ever elusive internet and sit right next to two couples talking about the Bible and church things. I poked my head, introduced myself and found they are two pastors of two Nazarene churches in Coucil Bluffs. Later a man approached me who had been sitting in the corner listening to the conversation I had with the pastors. He revealed he was a believer as well and began telling me about this ministry he does every summer during this ‘rainbow festival’. Apparently it’s kind of a hippy fest dark thing that young people from all over the nation come to. This guy really made me uneasy at first because he litterally looked like a crooked car sales man with greased back hair and a strange briefcase he kept his laptop in… but then he started speaking to me about the church and the ‘Babylonian empire’ that is the mega instituions of faith vs. the little guys of the laity living in the priestly kingdom and walking in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. He was very anti-organized religion, saying he was “110% against Catholicism.” I sensed a strange tone of paranoia in the way he told me he thought Catholics ‘hunt his kind down’ knowing that ‘his kind’ are undermining the ‘business churches’. Anyway, he was 50% red flag material and 50% full of interesting, thought-provoking opinions. Then I mentioned I was a part of the Heartland house of prayer and he proceeded to ask me if i knew anyone down at IHOP and showed me his contact list which was full of people names and the letters IHOP after each. He gave me a girls number and told me to call her in a Russian accent about a secret prayer meeting. Wow, I’m thinking, this is almost a scene from a moive, like is this conversation with a complete stranger really happening right now?
So yeah, he was a cool guy and so were the Nazarene pastors. I told Sam, the greaser, that the one thing my spirit was doing as he was talking about this disunity, was breaking. I really sob inside for the separation of such passionate Christians. If you think about it, I am sandwiched right now between two types of totally different opinions and ideologies, yet their similarity should be more powerful: their love for Christ and the gospel. Should not that one, powerful, commonality bring such men together? You would think so. Gandhi said he would convert if he saw a Christian actually living what Christ preached. That’s just a punch to the gut isn’t it? I mean really, where are the real disciples of Christ in this one-foot-in, one-foot-out, watered down thing we call modern day ‘Christianity’? We need to have two things: the fear of the Lord, and the passionate, relentless, all consuming love of the Lord. We need to move forward in the Spirit, unashamed and extravgantly counter-cultural. ‘Christians’ need to be visibly different from the masses. We need to be movers and shakers in society, a people less consumed with our own lives and more concerned for magnifying the body of God’s family.
Anyway, I’ll jump off my preachy soapbox now. Man, I came here to get things done and instead was faced with meeting some wonderful people in the Lord, yet both very different sides of faith. I guess the Lord had plans to make me think, and more importantly to pray for the much needed unity between His children.
