LENT 2007
From the Editor...
God Inspired Dreamers Of Great Dreams
Ever have someone capture your imagination? Really grab a hold of you so you could not let what they said go?
I had a sports coach like that in high school once. “Make no
little plans for there is no magic in them to stir people's souls,” he
insisted. Before long, he was challenging me to consider trying
out for the varsity team at my high school. In this sport my
school's team had won the national championship a couple of years
before. I thought he had lost his mind at first — but he hooked
me. My life was really changed because he taught me to dream big
dreams.
Jesus was the ultimate captivator of human beings and their
imaginations. He talked of the Kingdom of God — nothing less than
God's reign in our midst. Living water, he said. The bread
of life. By the time he was finished with one woman he met she
had evangelized an entire village. Come and see a man who told me
all that I ever did (and graciously loved me anyway). Wow!
All this was brought to mind recently when I was following my daily ritual, after completing morning devotions, of reading the New York Times (a paper in one hand and a Bible in the other, Karl Barth once said. I hope you discover the joy of doing both daily).
On this particular day a front-page story in the Times appeared
about a plan to give a 150-dollar computer to all the children in the
two-thirds world. This was the brainchild of Nicholas Negroponte,
founding director of the M.I.T. media laboratory. The article
went on to spell out how, in spite of opposition from Microsoft and
Intel, as well as a number of educators, it just might happen.
The machine can run just on sunlight. It doesn't even have a hard
drive. Holy cow!
Where are the disciples of Jesus with big ideas — ideas like
this? If I look around I see Tim Keller seeking to engross New
York, I watch Rick Warren trying to persuade America, and I read of
Benedict XVI trying to captivate Europe. It is no accident that
these figures are from evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism because at
present the future of Christianity in the West lies there and only
there.
Yet it is not too late for the mainline churches to participate in such
a challenging and wonderful future. It can only happen when we
are recaptured by our Lord and his gospel that seeks to bring the whole
truth of God to every whole person throughout the whole world.
Wouldn't it be fantastic if some Anglicans produced a few shockingly
big ideas instead of the stale, dry-as-dust humdrum that passes for
being acceptable in so many of our parishes? By the grace of God
may it be so.
-- The
Rev. Canon Dr.
Kendall S. Harmon
Contact Dr
Harmon by
e-mail at ksharmon@mindspring.com
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