Monday, July 26, 2010

Weeding the Church

This morning I was prayer walking around our church building, and I couldn't help but notice the landscaping. Someone has planted some really lovely annuals along the front path into the building, and they look really nice. There are some huge hostas (perhaps it's time to thin them and share them with people?), and this Spring there was a great group who came in and weeded (they hauled away truckloads - literally truckloads - of weeds).

But as I walked around this morning, I noticed more weeds... some of them were pretty large and others were hiding (like the poison ivy under the hostas). It made me think...

Jesus tells a parable about the weeds and the crops, and the result was that the weeds were left in with the wheat.

There aren't just weeds in the landscaping; there are weeds in the church, too. Sometimes Christians get a bad reputation because some people have been in church all their lives, yet they are weeds. One weed I pulled out of the flower bed was really tall and actually had flowered; it reminded me that some people are really busy doing churchy stuff, but their hearts haven't been transformed by Jesus Christ.

The parable ends with the weeds being thrown into the fire, which is pretty scary and final, but the next parable is about transformation: a mustard plant transformed into a tree...

Which brings up one of the wildest parts of being in the church: even weeds can be transformed.

4 comments:

Chad said...

great last couple of posts!

Kym Klass said...

Thank goodness for that ...

Chad said...

Peace to you brother! I am so encouraged by your writing. So glad i stumbled across your blog. Take it easy today. Last nite I dreamed my grandfather won 50,000,000 dollars and was going to share it with all his descendants.

Rev.Dulce said...

This was a great post and struck me at the right time....thanks!