Read this wonderful, provocative conversation with Sara Miles, an Episcopal writer. There’s much to ponder here. I find the section excerpted below to be particularly thought-provoking. Several of the folks at St. Gregory Nyssa, the parish where Miles works (and where she came to faith), occasionally teach workshops on liturgy. When I attended one in 2006, one idea I carried away was that church should be “safe but not comfortable.” Church should be a safe space, where all our questions, our gifts, our wounds, our personality quirks and our noisy children are welcomed and loved – but comfort means nothing is challenging us or changing us. I’m sure Miles has that idea in mind here, as she talks about the danger in aiming to make our churches comfortable.
People want to change and people don’t to change. People profoundly want to be made new, and people profoundly want to be clothed in Christ, to be born again. And they profoundly want to cling to everything old – about the world, and about themselves. (more…)