I really love to design our own cards every year. But if I have too much demand at my etsy store this year I’m going to have Kristen at Winged Feet Design do our cards. Her designs are awesome and I would love to know that my money is going to help her support her two adorable daughters.
Remember to support the little guy this year. The economy will thank you for it!
… Listening to this fantastic Neko Case concert on NPR’s new music site. You’ll be glad for it.
I’ve continued to kick around the ideas I put down in this post about the use of the phrase “spiritual journey,” and the journey metaphor as a way of understanding our lives as people of faith: It seems to me that the idea of a journey isn’t really a bad one–there’s enough mention in scripture of similar terms–but it’s the idea of my spiritual journey that really messes things up. God is certainly taking us somewhere–as he took the Israelites out of bondage, etc.–but it’s us, not me.
Spiritual growth (sanctification) is never an independent project. All of scripture’s sanctification language is inclusive, rather than exclusive: People of God, the church as body of Christ, the vine/branches metaphor, the list goes on.
Scripture’s sanctification language is also relational. This is fitting for a religion that worships a God-in-three-Persons; God-in-Communion. The Church is called the bride of Christ, we are called sons and daughters of God. Indeed, we cannot come to know Christ apart from the work of the Church, and knowing Christ means union with Christ.
Lutherans talk about the church as the “priesthood of all believers”. As Dr. Wollenburg has written:
Individual members of the priesthood receive their identity when the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is put upon them. The nature and character of the royal priesthood is that of a community or society. The identity of each member of the priesthood is determined by his or her relationship to the community in which God lives with his Spirit (Eph. 2:22). In contrast to idolatrous baalism, paganism, animistic religions, and gnosticism, both ancient and modern, no one can know or belong to God as an isolated individual. The worship of the community of the priesthood is not a crowd of individuals coming together, each to have his own religious experience.
In this light, the language of “personal spiritual growth plans” to help on “your spiritual journey,” is really counter-Christian, regardless of the appeal to a culture defined by its icons of segmentation. If I want my family to participate in music together, I give them all instruments, not iPods.
Our sanctification is in communion with Christ and His Church. This doesn’t mean that individuals can’t each be at different places in a life of sanctification. Quite the opposite–the diversity-within-unity of the church is what makes it a community, and the blood of Christ for all is what makes it His bride and body.