Feature Friday

I don't have a blogger to feature again this week, but I do have a feature of sorts. It's a book. It's called, "God in the Bath, Relaxing in the everywhere presence of God" by Stephen Mitchell.

My landlord James, lent me this book to read. We'd been talking about Christian books and other things and he told me a friend of his wrote a very good book and I should read it.

So last night I started it, it's a little harder to read as some of the British words differ from the American words. However, I am intreguied by it and was startled by some of the statistics listed. Did you know this:

• From 1979-1989, attendance in churches of all denominations within the UK dropped by 13%.
• The following decaded it dropped even more, 22%!
• The amount of people who believe in a God, dropped from 43% in the 1950s to 31% in the 1990's.
• Britons espousing atheism rocketed from 2% to 27%!
• And the headline of the London Daily read "CHURCH DEAD AND BURIED BY 2040"

The author writes this in his book and now I can see why all these big beautiful Churches are sitting empty! Our Landlord had said less that 10% of the country goes to Church...wow! So right. Some Radical Christians really need to step up to the plate out here and get these Church doors open.

The author also wrote a poem that really hit me as I read it, I want you to read it. I hope it's okay that I post it, I am giving him the credit, I did not write this.

Harken, O ye peoples.

Hear the word of the Lord.

Woe to faith, and woe to the people of faith.

Faith has fled into the bathroom,

embarrassed herself and hiddne herself away.

She stares at herself in the mirror,

too shy to show her face,

Through her tears she repairs her face in vain.

What can restore her beauty?

How can she hold her head up high in the house where she was once its head?

No one comforts her.

No one misses her.

She is forgotten

and has forgotten her own name.

Woe to faith and woe to the people of faith.

How sad is that?! Oh, it just squeezes my heart in a painful way. How often do we forget about Faith, the faith we say we have? How often do we just step out on a leap of faith? Not often, cause we've forgotten the faith we so claim to have. There are many Churches in England, many big and beautiful Churches, with their doors closed, not enough attendees to keep her open, to restore her.

This weeks topic has been about DISCOURAGEMENT and it is so easy to get discouraged when life is rough, things get us down, and even easier when we've completely forgotten our Faith. Today, I want to challenge you as a Radical Christian, to remind Faith of her name, and tell someone, anyone, that God loves them, don't run and hide in the bathroom.

I just can not imagine life without God, or a Church in which to learn and have fellowship...as Christians we need to step up to the plate and hit some home runs for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It's the least we can do, for the man who carried the cross & died just for us.