Am I a black hole?
My friend Dave pointed me recently to a sermon by Erwin McManus on the subject of prayer. Actually, it was a podcast, and you can listen to it by subscribing to the podcast via iTunes. If you don't have iTunes then you are still in luck because Dave actually ripped it into a stand-alone file you can download via his blog. It's really good and you listen to it if you get a chance.
But that sermon isn't the reason I am writing. I am writing about a comment McManus makes in a different sermon, entitled "Making Space for Strange Things To Happen". In that sermon McManus recounts a story about a couple who were flying on a plane when the cabin lost pressure and all the little oxygen masks popped out of the ceiling. All except for one. The wife had her mask just fine, but the husband's mask for some reason did not come down. So, this poor guy is desperately scratching away at the ceiling trying to get his mask to come down, while his wife is sitting calmly next to him, sucking in the oxygen from her mask, and expressing no desire to share. A bizarre story, certainly, especially if it is true.
But here's McManus' point. He proposes that many of us as Christians are so inward focused that we have ignored the primary mission of the church. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Yet, sometimes it seems as if we are so comfortable enjoying that nice oxygen that we don't want to share it with anyone else.
One of my teachers gave a very similar message the other day. He compared us to black holes. He said that we basically absorb anything and everything that comes near us, and never give anything out. We suck in all this good teaching and preaching, prayers and worship, books and resources and music and support and fellowship. And none of it ever makes it out of our gravitational field. We have become, in his words, "centripetal", inward focused, luxuriating in the blessings and promises of God. And yet Jesus Christ himself ordered us to instead be "centrifugal", spinning outwards, sharing and preaching and reaching and loving the whole world.
So what am I? Am I simply consuming my faith? Or am I spinning it out to the lost, the weary, the lonely, and the broken?
But that sermon isn't the reason I am writing. I am writing about a comment McManus makes in a different sermon, entitled "Making Space for Strange Things To Happen". In that sermon McManus recounts a story about a couple who were flying on a plane when the cabin lost pressure and all the little oxygen masks popped out of the ceiling. All except for one. The wife had her mask just fine, but the husband's mask for some reason did not come down. So, this poor guy is desperately scratching away at the ceiling trying to get his mask to come down, while his wife is sitting calmly next to him, sucking in the oxygen from her mask, and expressing no desire to share. A bizarre story, certainly, especially if it is true.
But here's McManus' point. He proposes that many of us as Christians are so inward focused that we have ignored the primary mission of the church. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Yet, sometimes it seems as if we are so comfortable enjoying that nice oxygen that we don't want to share it with anyone else.
One of my teachers gave a very similar message the other day. He compared us to black holes. He said that we basically absorb anything and everything that comes near us, and never give anything out. We suck in all this good teaching and preaching, prayers and worship, books and resources and music and support and fellowship. And none of it ever makes it out of our gravitational field. We have become, in his words, "centripetal", inward focused, luxuriating in the blessings and promises of God. And yet Jesus Christ himself ordered us to instead be "centrifugal", spinning outwards, sharing and preaching and reaching and loving the whole world.
So what am I? Am I simply consuming my faith? Or am I spinning it out to the lost, the weary, the lonely, and the broken?
posted by Jonathan Ziman at
3:58 PM
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