I had false expectations of the book “Call to Commitment.” Given the title, I thought it would be a manifesto similar to “When the Church was a Family” that would break down the reasons and history for committing one to another in the Church. This in reality, was my itching ears beggingto hear a song they already knew so that I could justify and confirm my own rightness.
The book did contain some passages that affirmed the ideas we learned about in the previous book. Right in the first few chapters, Elisabeth O'Connor dives deep into the church's need for commitment beginning with the brochure for their new congregation, “This is a dangerous book about a demanding way of life and a vigorous institution that would propagate it...” Much is said about the cost of discipleship and the mission of the church, and all of these things confirmed what I believed to be true.
It seems, however, that I am much more keen on a law than a Living Word, because as the rest of the book unfolded and the story of the Church of the Savior was made known, I found myself in a battle, at times utterly frustrated and dismayed. As we at Adsideo find ourselves on the brink of a new chapter of our lives, it seems that we are teeter totting on the edge of a very precarious mountain trail. I hoped to find in the Church of the Savior something solid, tested, and true; a paved tunnel leading to the other side of the stormy peaks. What I found was a people that, yes, found true the necessities of discipleship and commitment, but were like a band of rag-tag militia, running with reckless abandon towards a war against the empire. As O'Connor says herself, “It takes courage to walk into the unknown, a willingness to take upon ourselves the burden of anxiety.” I saw a people that took upon that burden freely and joyfully. Meanwhile, I sat trembling in the corner.
In the very last chapter of the book, my concerns were addressed. Elisabeth admits, “Sometimes...It seems that we move too fast and that there are too few of us, and that we are in too many places, and that we are too inadequate for the tasks which we have taken up.”
“Yes! It certainly does seem that way!” I piped in with my ragged white flag waving high. My thoughts were then nearly perfectly translated in the question someone asked the pastor Gordon Smith, “Can't you see the weakness everywhere and the possibility that all these little structures we are building are going to come tumbling down?”
The Spirit's response through Gordon cut me straight to the heart, sending me to my closet to retrieve my sackcloth and ashes, “That which is in God cannot be shaken. If it is not of God, then let us praise Him when it collapses so that we can get on with the next thing, because surely we don't want to give our lives to building what is not His will.” And what about the people within those structures? “That in them which is of Christ cannot be shaken. And that which is not, they will want to let go. The structures are not important. It is what happens to us and everyone who will be involved in them which is important.”
I have been an anxious dude. My worry stems from the possibility that our little congregation will somehow mess up, and more importantly that those mistakes will have a negative impact on my life. So I have taken on the burden of making sure that everything goes according to plan. Because of this, my attitude is often bitter and harsh as I see my false expectations crumbling before me. What God has used the Church of the Savior to remind me is that this is HIS story. I am to be but a small lump of clay in the grand sculpture of the God-With-Us story. That means I need to be thrown around, drown in water, and fired in the furnace in order to be of any use to the Master Potter. Who am I to accuse my God of not working how I would want him to? So I join faithful followers everywhere in humbling myself before my God and casting my anxiety upon him, patiently waiting with the confident expectation that he will lift us all up in due time.
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