Location, Location, Location!

It's true in real estate, it's true in theology. You can only be where God planted you. Sometimes, it's a fit; sometimes, not so much...

We spend a lot of time as people trying to make our location fit us; rather, than having our location shape us. For example, I love mountains, but I've never had to live in them. I've lived on the prairie most of my life, and the Texas desert when I didn't. I'm not used to making mountains part of my life.

But many of my friends and co-workers over the years have grown up in mountains, and the prairie drives them nuts. There's no boundaries, no landmarks you can see for miles away--in short, there is just too much sky.

We get that way in our congregations as well. We try to put a group of people who live in the mountains into congregations like those out on the prairie. Just doesn't work. We have to be attentive to our locations geographically, but even more so culturally. And this is where congregations often fail.

We use the ministries of one location as if it will adapt immediately to any and all location. We assume all people are all the same, and that if something works for congregation Chi it will also work for congregation Rho, even though the two congregations have little in common but a short name.

We need to see that God gives us many different locations for ministry, and to see that each location has its own unique culture, its own way of living, its own way of being human. That's what congregations do.

Below you'll find a sermon that comes from one such location in the world. If you were to find any part of it useful for your life, make sure you use your location to have it make sense.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.