Where do we get our ideas about God?

That's the question I asked our confirmation class this week. They gave all the answers you'd expect a group of 12-15 year-old Christian kids, sitting on the Pastor's porch in a class preparing them to join the church, to give: "Church, the Bible, our parents. . . friends..." and then, tentatively, "the media...?" Indeed.

From sitcoms (a recent episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" tackled the meaning of life when one of the children asked, "Why does God make us be born?") to movies (George Lucas says he created Star Wars to encourage young people to think about God), to news reports to Top-40 songs, the airwaves and printed pages are full of messages about God. In fact, it would be accurate and wise to acknowledge that we are immersed in a continuous conversation---or maybe, a cacophony or conflicting convictions---about God, about ultimate things, about meaning and purpose and life and redemption.

"How do we decide which ideas are right and which aren't?" I asked my confirmation class. This time the obvious answers ("church, the Bible, parents...") were not quite as forthcoming, which I found interesting and not necessarily discouraging. It was at least an honest response, perhaps as an unexpected insight and acknowledgement of the sheer volume of contrary testimony to the Christian claims we make about God, Jesus, salvation, eternal life, and the ultimate victory of the reign of God.

Once a week we gather for worship and to tell the story, that God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. (At least, that's the story we should expect to hear in the gathering of that community of people which that story gives birth and new birth to.) Is it enough to controvert the contrary and confusing evidence that the world (which God loves, remember!) constantly presents us with?

On an individual level, I guess it depends on how convinced you are, on how converted you let yourself be both by the story that is told and the story that is lived when God's people gather. But consider this: this story has and is and --- this is our claim too! --- will continually be transforming the world "like yeast that leavens the whole batch," like a mustard seed that "grows until it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches". Professor Walter Breuggemann writes, "Imagine the church as the place for an alternative conversation. In a society of denial, as the church we speak what we know, evoke resistance and yearning, permit alternative, authorized newness... the church is this relentless conversation, bearing witness to the news --- how our life, our bodies, and our imagination can be weaned from the deathliness of the world to the newness of life in the gospel --- in the face of all brands of fear and ideology." (Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism: Living in a Three-Storied Universe).

When you think about it, it may be that what happens on Sunday morning (or whenever 2 or 3 or 60 or 2000 are gathered with the promise and expectation that "The Lord is with you; "And also with you." is the most important news and story in the whole universe for that week. And you're invited to be part of that story, and part of its telling! I hope you don't miss it!

Seeking God's reign,

Erwin