Recovering grace at the heart of the message

I'm not the first person to observe that people outside of the church have a far better idea about we stand against than what we stand for.

We've just spent a week at Spring Harvest, but I'm not suggesting that this is the problem! No, it's some of the things that get onto the evangelical agenda that worry me.

Take the whole science versus creation debate. In the blue corner we have the extreme creationists, and in the red corner we have those who see rejecting evolution as some form of intellectual suicide. As someone who's worked and studied in both the theological sphere and the secular realm of research and development, I've sorted lived in both worlds. I've had the opportunity to look at things from both points of view. And the truth is, there's never been a debate for me. If God wanted to create the world in an instant, I have no problem with that. I'm rather more interested in why he did. But that's not the only potential red herring in the pack.

I feel saddened that we're sometimes in danger of getting hot under the collar about things that, in the end, won't matter a great deal at all. They may appear to matter now, but they are just a distraction. I don't want to use my short life crossing "t's" and dotting "i's" of correct doctrine whilst missing all the important stuff of helping people connect with God.

I just can't get excited anymore about a good argument about who's right and who's wrong. I live in a community of around 1000 people I think. I'm not sure many of them are too concerned about these things. I'm guessing that most of them are more worried about why life doesn't appear to be working properly for them or for their families or for a friend at work who is a 'really nice person' but is dying from cancer, or facing another major life challenge.

So thanks Spring Harvest for helping me to remember that grace it at the heart of our message; that we're imperfect beings who are trying hard to live as God intended us to live; and that I'm not alone on this planet.

Favourite moment from Spring Harvest? Has to be when Adrian Plass shared his map reading story and when he pointed out that an anagram of fundamentalist was "snail fed mutant".