The following is a link to a GREAT article on church shopping, and the creeping consumer culture in our churches.

iChurch: All we like lost sheep

WHO CREATED GOD?

This is a great question from our "Question Box" at the Good Shepherd. The following appeared in the bulletin...

" The quick answer is: No one. According to the Bible, God is the great “I AM” who was, and is, and is to come. He has no beginning, and no ending. To put this answer in perspective, one could also ask when heaven will end.

This is a great question as it raises the difficulty in understanding God from our human perspective. From the human perspective: everything that has a beginning must have been created somehow. This is the main premise behind the intelligent design theory that is so popular and controversial at the moment. However, God is so great and glorious, He defies human understanding. One commenter said, “It is like trying to explain the Internet to an ant”. The Christian is called put their trust in Jesus’ claims and teachings, and who He revealed God to be. "


For those wishing to read more on this subject (I don't necessarily agree with all the viewpoints expressed in these articles, but they are worth reading)...

Who Created God at www.christiananswers.net
Who Created God at rationalchristianity.net

There is also the books by Lee Strobel availible to borrow at the Church.

With the polarization of our Church, in lock step with the polarization of worldly politics, I was really challenged by Henry Nouwen's commentary on alertness in solitude from his book "Reaching out". It is a challenge to resist the temptation of responding to the world by; (a) completely disengaging or (b) polarizing ourselves into lines of 'for' and/or 'against' (read: liberal/conservative). Instead, responding from a place of living the gospel of love over and against the fear, negativity and paranoia of the world. I suppose this is a call to liberals to stand more on the truth of Jesus, and for conservatives to leave the drawn lines more porous.

"...In our solitude, our history no longer can remain a random collection of disconnected incidents and accidents but has to become a constant call for the change of heart and mind. There we can break through the fatalistic chain of cause and effect and listen with our inner senses to the deeper meaning of the actualities of everyday life. There the world no longer is diabolic, dividing us into 'fors' and 'againsts' but becomes symbolic, asking us to unite and reunite the outer with the inner events. There the killing of a president, the success of a moonshot, the destruction of cities by cruel bombing and the disintegration of a government by the lust for power, as well as the disappointments and pains...all become urgent invitations to a response; that is, a personal engagement."

In the end, the politics won't matter, how we engaged the world (case by case) with the message of Jesus will.