Level Ground at the Foot of the Cross

When Dwight used the phrase "the ground is level at the foot of the cross" this morning I was reminded of the following article that I read recently in the Church Innovations Newsletter while thinking about what becoming missional looks like...

Crossing the Bar X: “Home by Another Way”
By Jim Johnson, Church Innovations Consultant

“How has it come to be that we who have sought to faithfully proclaim that the “ground is all level at the foot of the cross” and that Jesus came “to seek and save the lost” have so successfully put forth the impression that one needs to live as though he or she is not lost in order to be worthy of being sought and saved by our Savior?”

When I overheard Cathy, a soon to be retired elementary school teacher from a very small town here in Montana, talking with my wife Nancy one night at the Bull’n Bear, I was taken back to statements made to me in the space of three days in a small concert tour I was doing on the Oregon over 10 years ago.

Three women, in 3 different towns, had said the same thing to me that Cathy was saying to Nancy after they had listened to “A Hard Case,” a song I had written about divorce and how people often experience the church when their lives are falling to pieces. The only difference between Cathy and these other three women is that each in their own time had returned to the church – the first after a minimum of 10 years away and a maximum of 30 years for another.
Cathy has not.

“I used to teach Sunday School and everything,” Cathy said, “and was pretty active in my Presbyterian Church. Then I got divorced. The word got out that I was divorcing my husband, and for three weeks in a row, no one talked to me when I came to church. I haven’t been back since.”

Click Here to read the entire article