Well, I guess I’m wrong.  You’re probably wasting your time with this whole spiritual formation thing.

According to this dazzling little gem-of-a-website, “alien abductions can be stopped, and terminated as a life pattern, in the name and authority of Jesus Christ.”

It’s very simple: “Either the aliens are right and they’re telling people the truth, which means that everything the Christian church teaches about God and the Bible is a lie… or… the Bible is right, God is true, and the aliens are lying.”

I suppose we could be upset that these folks are wasting so much energy battling dishonest aliens.  But I wonder – what other equally-ridiculous things do we waste our time on in the name of Jesus?

Silence is nice in church. It can be very comforting and refreshing And it opens up space enough for us to hear the Spirit whisper our name.

But do you rely on church to provide silence for you because you don’t know how to quiet your own soul?

Here’s a start: get up early. Turn off the TV, the music, the cell phone, the computer. Go somewhere private… and wait. Just wait. Then, do it again tomorrow. And the next day. Do it until the silence seeps into your soul and it begins to well up inside you and drowns out the noise in your life.

Then instead of cravenly consuming as much quiet as your local church can manufacture for you, silence becomes instead a celebration of God’s daily presence in the midst of a noise-addicted world.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” (John 14)

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”  (Matthew 18)

When was the last time you went to a worship service that was designed with children in mind?  Not imaginary children as idealized by crusty grown-ups, but ACTUAL children –

• Children are loud
• Children are messy
• Children are fidgety
• Children are unfocused
• Children are naive
• Children are unpolished
• Children are immature
• Children are irrational
• Children have no concept of time
• Children are simple
• Children aren’t impressed by big words (most can’t even read yet!)
• Children are not circumspect
• Children don’t pick up on nuance
• Children are timid
• Children laugh at fart jokes
• Children are playful
• Children are irreverent
• Children are full of questions

‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children…..”  I doubt that God is impressed with much of our sophisticated, prim and proper worship pomp.  Maybe there should be more fart jokes in worship – or at least maybe we should consider why becoming a ‘good Christian’ usually means becoming as un-childlike as possible.