Walls

I have many heroes. One of them is my older (13 year old) son. He is many things that I am not -- coordinated, courageous, and outgoing. There is also great joy in seeing some of the parts of me that I think are the best reflected in my child. He isn't perfect (at all), but I am glad in him.

He volunteered a few weeks ago to lead Children's church. This is the time in our service when the children from kindergarten through 3rd grade (or so) leave the service for their own time of "worship." S and I had the pleasure of watching him -- and the struggle of trying to not "help." He based his lesson on the story of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho. As he was teaching, he asked the kids if they felt safe at home -- they all nodded yes. He explained that that was what the wall of Jericho was like -- it was to make the people who lived there feel safe. He told them that God could tear down walls.

I never would have thought of that. I would have told them that it was a story of obedience. He made it into a story of the work of God in our lives. It got me thinking...

What are the walls in our church that make us feel safe? What walls do we need to ask God to tear down?

• We have certain expectations, don't we? We place walls around the youth -- walls that define our limits of what role they should play in the church. They can stay up in the youth lounge, play games, go somewhere for pizza, but we don't really want them to lead worship or make a mess. Thankfully, God has started blowing trumpets in our church and tearing down those walls.
• We place walls around our image of what men and women should do in the church.
• We have traditional services on Sunday morning and a not-so-traditional service on Thursday night. We build walls between the people who attend each one.
• We build walls that define what ministers should do in the church. Heaven forbid one of them steps outside those invisible barriers.
• We have certain expectations of how money should be spent -- and some of them are exactly right priorities, but some of them should have some walls removed.
• We wall in our idea of how people should look at church -- the clothes they should wear or not wear -- I do it myself to my own boys (and I'm not changing my mind).
• We wall out new technology and wall in our traditional music. We wall out the involvement of children and youth in the service and wall in our order of worship.

We build walls so that we can feel safe, but God can tear them down. We can tear down those walls with God's help.

You go, babe, and tear down those walls.

Image: The picture is of a retaining wall at work. I was walking in from the parking lot, and said to myself, "Self, someday you're going to need a picture of a wall." So there it is.