Neither sweet dream or nightmare, only God’s grace comes true

Once when I was a kid, I sat beside my little sister’s bed waiting for the moment of her slightly open eyes start rolling during her afternoon nap. (Adults told me that dreams caused eyes rolling when a person was sleeping.) At the moment when she was rolling her eyes, by catching and sliding into her dream window, I quickly tore out a little piece of my farvourite and precious sweet pork jerky, and then gently placing it into her halfway-open mouth. I would like her to have a good dream of eating sweet pork jerky, and the sweet dream of hers would become a dream comes true reality upon her awakening.

I was a naive kid but not totally oblivious. I was a little bit worried that she might choke onto the piece of jerky during her sleep, so I kind of kept an eye during the process to make sure the choking part would not happen. The piece of jerky somehow dropped deeper and deeper into her tongue along with the rhythm of her breathe; I can felt the rhythm of my heart beats getting faster, as I was getting worry that the piece of gradually sinking jerky would end up choking her.

In the middle, I regret on introducing the sweet pork jerky into her halfway-open mouth; however, it was kind of late as the piece of pork jerky was sinking deeper and deeper into her mouth and no longer within my sight. I didn’t want to wake her up because such alarm certainly would be my nightmare of choking her. Shortly after, with the grace of God, she “gently” woke up from her afternoon nap. What a relief noticing her awakening without being choked by the piece of jerky that was put into her mouth. I kept quiet about the incident for some time or days, as I was trying to recover from my little nightmare which I was thankfully that it did not come true.

I asked her quite some time, perhaps days, later on if she found there was a piece of sweet pork jerky in her mouth when she woke up during one of her afternoon naps. She told me that she found a piece of tasteless meat left in her mouth thinking that she didn’t brush her teeth throughout before nap time; I was a little disappointed to find out the sweet pork jerky became a saliva washed down tasteless piece of junk in her mouth; on the other hand, I was thankful that she was not choked by this piece of tasteless junk which once meant to be a piece of precious sweet sharing.

Although my plan of “a sweet dream comes true” did not work out accordingly to my design, God saving her from not choking to death was the most caring and thankful piece of all.

A Tale of Two Churching Models

I am thankful to the Lord that I have opportunities chatting with some dear fellow Christians, although the origin of our conversations was not pinpointing on the subject of “being church”; however, from conversations of these two months the profile of “being church” gradually comes into appearance.

In the lay people circle, basically there are two viewpoints of churching: community-centric and monastery-centric.

(1) community-centric churching

• The church emphases on the invitation of not-yet-Christians or cultural Christians: the church consists of a mixture of non-Christians, believers and disciples.
• The church is being a social gathering place where music and atmosphere are more catered towards the feel, taste, and personal desire of people for gaining attraction or popularity. Fellowship groups’ often involve many carnal activities.
• Gospel is to be introduced as Bible knowledge (weighing more on brain level than heart level) into the group, in which often putting heavier weigh on soteriology and eschatology. Usually from the introduction of salvation to following up discipleship programs are structured, academic (exegesis & hermeneutics), and pragmatic (skills) in formula, in a generic sense, instead of particular, to suit the mentors and the seekers. I guess, such is base on the goal of “fast and mass production”, plus mentors do not get enough solitude time with God for reflection while busy greeting and caring for the massive visitors. This approach is kind of helpful on building a fundamental Bible knowledge, which yields a common base, and prepares some references when walking further onto the pilgrimage.
• The church emphasizes of taking census as viewing headcounts, programs, missionary trips, and/or financial statistics as the health index of church, in which the index figure can be quantified, and convenient on reporting to the public. However, this can easily lead to anxiety due to the interpretation of statistics.
  

(2) monastery-centric churching

• The church consists of devoted Christians.
• The church is being a rejuvenating place for Christians through worship focusing on loving and praising God, plus fellowship focusing on devotion (getting to know oneself and his/her creator God): Bible reading, reflection, praying, and spiritual journaling, in which often putting more weight on sanctification leading towards the glorification of God, since the receivers are Christians whom already accepted salvation.
• Christians are to demonstrate Gospel by going out to the world but not of the world: office work, house work, volunteering work, social work, community work, school work… etc. They share Gospel by emerging Christ’s view when prompted on matters, or given windows of opportunity in conversations. There is no structural program or formula lying underneath, as the application/expression of Gospel, believing Gospel is absolute, is fluid on the topics being put onto the table, base on what they have digested during their solitude time with God.
• The church views the health index of church by the holistic well being of all Christians, in which the index figure is often quite abstract, and kind of difficult to creating a report to the public (BTW. Christians don’t need to report, actually not really capable of producing a full report, since He knows all and more than what we consciously knew). Anxiety won’t help, as often has to wait on (in prayers) the work of the Holy Spirit.
  

From where I live, most churches’ oriented towards the community-centric model. For those Christians who see the need of monastery-centric model, they usually practice monastery-centric model with their family members at home, or/and with spin-off cell groups, while attending community-centric model church treating it as part of their practice of “going out to the world but not of the world”.