Dale Cresap's blog

Do you think that flesh is evil and that true spirituality requires distancing yourself from the flesh? That your body is just a vehicle for your spirit that you will gladly discard when you enter the higher realm? A more recent version of the same concept is that your body is just a vehicle for carrying around your brain. Both of these are wrong. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God, and you take this to mean pure Spirit. So when the time was right, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Pure Spirit was incarnated.

Do you think of me as a homeless person? I said that foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head, meaning I did not have a fixed location to call home. And yet how many accounts do you read of me staying with religious leaders, or tax collectors, or other sinners? I lived in a culture where hospitality was taken seriously, and I accepted invitations from across the entire social spectrum. These opportunities for community and fellowship were important enough to record in my word. Would you have me as your dinner guest and put me up for the night?

Do you want more stuff? Possessions are a form of wealth, but they can transition from being useful in their own right to acquisitions for the sake of acquisition, such as status symbols. You can cross a line between having things and your things having you, and they can become a burden that hinders your life. You understand that you can only carry so much weight at one time. Do you understand that this principle applies to all the things you own whether you are carrying them around or not?

Do you like waterfalls? Who doesn’t? The objective explanation is that a watercourse reaches a discontinuity and gravity takes over. This doesn’t explain why people drive great distances and hike miles just to see them. Do you live in a world that is material only, or in a world that includes beauty and mystery and wonder? Even people who are complete skeptics go to see waterfalls, and sunsets and mountains and lakes. Their behavior contradicts their stated worldview. The heavens (and the earth) declare the glory of the Lord.

Would you send a first grader to high school? You understand that such a child doesn’t have the background and isn’t prepared for instruction at this level. Yet do you begin evangelism with a presentation of the propositional truth claims of Christianity in general or your church in particular? Perhaps there was a time when the cultural background was strong enough to support such an approach, but that is no longer so.

Are you familiar with the problem of evil? Skeptics offer this as a challenge to believers, saying that if I am benevolent and all powerful, why is there pain and suffering in the world? This is a tricky question, but it can be answered with the problem of good in this manner: if I don’t exist and the world drifts according to random events, why is the world so favorable to life, and why has life flourished, with people replenishing and subduing the earth successfully? In the beginning I said that the world was good, and it still is.

Do you like stories? Everyone does, especially children. Parents discover quickly that their children like to hear the same stories over and over again. Do you have favorite stories of your own? Can you see that your own life plays out according to the stories you tell your self to make sense of your life and give it meaning and purpose? Are your stories true? Could another story be a better or more gracious interpretation of your situation, including the intentions and character of other people in your life?

 You live in a commercial culture and you have material needs. So you seek to find something useful to do that has an income attached. This is normal and expected whether you find satisfaction doing this or not. Hopefully you have some time and energy to devote to things you enjoy, but there is a third category as well. What do you do for others for which you do not require payment? This is beyond necessity, so it is a truer expression of your own identity. These are things that add meaning and purpose to your life. Freely you have received, freely give.

Do you see yourself as spiritual? Do you think everyone is? Not all are believers, but all are made in my image, and are spiritual on that basis. For this reason all have the basic concerns for a sense of identity, a need to belong to a community, and to lead a life of meaning and purpose. These are unavoidable questions that everyone faces, although some find better answers than others. Can you find answers in all three of these areas in one place? You can answer all of them in a church.

How do you describe the most powerful spiritual experiences of your life? Do you say that they are mountaintop experiences? When everyday experiences are wearing you down, how do you describe these experiences to others? Do you say that you are going through a valley? These are common expressions, but even a casual examination will reveal that people live in valleys and they don’t live on top of mountains. What is the conclusion to take away from this? If your faith is real it has to work in the everyday life you actually live. This is possible if you have eyes to see and ears to hear.