Why are we here?

I'm just about to go off to church to our first celebration of 2009. Part of what we'll do is to renew our commitment to God and to each other as the local church. We're going to use a piece of video that we've used before about "Our Church". It's not specific to us, it's more challenge about church in general. you can find the video at the Worshiphousemedia website, just search for "Welcome to our church" and it's the one by Floodgate productions.

After the video, I have a question to ask: Why are we here? This is what I plan to say next!

If you had to choose a word to describe the church would it be “dangerous”? Comfortable maybe, complacent sometimes, busy, confusing occasionally, but rarely dangerous.

And yet the story we share is a dangerous story. It’s a story about revolution and transformation. It changes lives and it can change the world. 

Our story challenges the status quo of perceived normality and proclaims that another world is possible. Not a world of Utopian dreams but of kingdom realities. Our story is one where blind people see, lame people dance and deaf people hear. A story in which those who are trapped and trafficked find freedom and hope, where the socially outcast become members of the family.

It is a truly dangerous story. But somehow we seem to be able live it as a quite suburban afternoon.