A strange thing happened this week. I work part time as a fishing guide and had two trips booked this Friday and Saturday. Each day I would have the same people on my boat so my weekend was full. Early this week my folks called and canceled but they sent a check for the entire amount the trips would cost. So here I sit with two days pay for work I don’t have to do.

I feel like I’ve been given a reprieve on a death sentence. That may over state the case a little but I do feel like some one gave me two free days. Now what am I going to do with them? Unfortunately there is no shortage of things to do around the house so I’ll spend the weekend taking care of all the things I put off while I’m guiding but that’s O.K. I still feel like these are free days some one just dropped on my head.

The weird thing is there is a part of me that seems to think I should feel like this all the time. Each day is a new one and why shouldn’t we approach it as a gift. Now I’ll be the first to admit the fact I have a thousand dollars in my pocket I don’t have to work for helps that gift feeling a lot but surely there is something about each day we could find to make us realize life is usually pretty good.

A lot of questions get asked around a church, what should we be doing, what activities take priority, what should we focus on just to list a few. All of these questions have a relatively simple answer. The best way for a church to know what it should be about is to study the life of Christ. If we are to be the continuing ministry of Jesus in our time and place we will take our cues from Jesus himself. As we study the Gospels we see Jesus feeding the hungry, healing the sick, taking time to care for children, giving dignity to women, touching lepers, eating with tax collectors and sinners and saving a women caught in the act of adultery.

The Jesus life is one of caring for and interacting with the people who are forgotten, marginalized and neglected. If a church is going to be about the work of Jesus that church will find itself welcoming the people most of society wants nothing to do with. That church will also find itself being very different from most churches. Sadly the majority of churches are not havens for hurting people but rather they tend to be exclusive and demand that every one be just like them to be welcome.

The good news that Jesus has come and God is reconciling man to himself is for everyone. Jesus has broken down the barriers that separate people and the church is the evidence of this work. In Jesus church there is no longer slave or free, male or female, Jew or Gentile. In Jesus church there is no separation between Democrat and Republican, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, citizen and alien. In Jesus church we are all one in Christ and there is no one who is not welcome.

A lot of questions get asked around a church and they all find their answer in Jesus.