The Mission Church of the Nazarene

   Our living room has been overtaken by boxes. Reality is setting in, that this is for real. At this point, there is no going back. In front of us is the actual jumping. It's one thing to say yes to God, it's another thing to actually jump out of the proverbial airplane.
     We hope and pray that the parachute opens, that God's hands open up and catch us. As for now, we are in the interim.
     We are living in the now and the not yet of this new ministry.
     Now, boxes are being packed, plans have been made, keys have been transferred, and dreams have been dreamed for this new ministry.
    Yet, there is not yet a church, and those dreams and plans are still very much dreams and plans. We're still here. I still sit in my office at my current church and write up plans for youth group, and write a sermon for next week. Those things are still happening, because we are not yet there.
      During Sunday school this week, the question came up about participating in the kingdom of God now, but that the kingdom of God isn't really here fully, not yet.
    That is what the kingdom of God is, this now, not yet paradox. Something we participate in, that we get glimpses of, but that isn't fully known until Christ returns.
   On a mini scale, that's what I feel like I am experiencing now. Glimpses of the kingdom of God to be in Hammond, but not yet actualized. Glimpses of a church to be, that isn't yet there. Maybe I'm starting to understand the Kingdom of God in ways I haven't before.
    God's Kingdom is so much bigger than the work to be done in Hammond, and I am praying that I start to grasp that. That I start to live into this vast imagination that God has for places. That I start to see it the way that God sees it, and that I see people the way God would.
     I pray that I always live with this tension of the now, not yet kingdom of God. A kingdom that is yet to be fulfilled, but that I can participate in on a daily basis. I want to live and reveal that kingdom every day, in our home, in our neighborhood, in our community and world. That this vision and imagination that God has placed within my heart, would be just seeds of the greatness that is to come. That I wouldn't just live with the hope that the kingdom of God would be actualized one day, but that I'd live into that kingdom now. That I'd be doing all I can to see that kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.