notes on “everything is spiritual”

I love Rob Bell… literally… the day and a half seminar with him in Atlanta changed the way I think forever; I wish we could do it again. I would pay good money…

I really enjoyed his “Everything is Spiritual” presentation… it was a foundational message, that I thought to be geared toward the non-believer or the doubter of the creation model. He brings up some of the science that is just too good to be true to sustain life; all the equilibriums, gas levels, etc… “The Case for a Creator” was in his list of resources.

He then shifted toward the human element… and I go blank here (I need to watch it again) on his points… but I remember him beginning at two ends of a spectrum: the spiritual end, and the ‘earthly’, or created end… and how, as humans, we are ultimately the center of the spectrum – where the spiritual realm and the created realm meet… and we are the only beings with that status… I need to watch it again…

One point regarding the Church was mentioned that I agree with and have for some time: first of all, God created this place and everything in it; we can’t hide from His presence nor escape His beauty. Everyday tasks are spiritual… no, they don’t have to involve praying or singing, etc… but just ‘being’ what we created to be is a spiritual thing.

Fast forward to the Church: he says that one thing we have to be careful of is making it feel like ‘church’ is where we come to ‘meet’ God, or that it’s where God ‘is’. And that He’s not necessarily everywhere else (I don’t mean explicitly saying this… just creating an environment that emits this feeling)… over time we can sink this attitude into our church-goers, and it can be harmful to our overall perspective of who and what God is. [nothing mind-blowing, I know… but I thought it worth mentioning in this setting.]

—

My ideal picture of the Church is a community of people committed to living the life they were created to live, every second of their life… committed to living the way of Jesus… and that the weekly gathering is simply the place where we come together, as one of the many facets of that lifestyle; where we come and celebrate the God who created us and the life of Jesus as a group… whether that means through teaching, song, other art forms; sharing, hanging out and developing relationships…

I feel like we really uphold the Sunday gathering as a sacred time, as we should. But we isolate it. It becomes the only time that really matters. There is a gap between our levels of reverence toward Church and the rest of the week that needs to narrow… we need to revere our lives as a beautiful, intentional creation just as much.

I don’t want in any way to devalue the Sunday gathering, but to uphold it with the utmost reverence… what I would like to see is us bringing the rest of our lives, the other 6 and a half days, up to that level of sacredness…