The Malawi Blog.
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Saturday, 21 April 07 - 06:16 PM (GMT -07:00) By Kerry Snyder in Church |
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I'd like to introduce you all to "The Malawi Blog". It was made in order for the people at my church (Superstition Springs Community Church) and those friends and family who are supporting me, and well, I guess anyone else who wants to, to be able to follow along with our trip to Malawi, Africa.
We will be posting a recap of each day spent in Malawi (as internet access allows) complete with photos which I hope to be uploading daily as well. Please pray for us as we travel and for God to work through us and lead us to the right partnerships with the right organizations. You can check out the Malawi Blog HERE.
MLK and The Church.
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Monday, 15 January 07 - 01:52 PM (GMT -07:00) By Kerry Snyder in Church |
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In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I thought I would share one of my favorite quotes. It's from his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 1963". Unfortunately the words still ring true for the church today, especailly the last paragraph. Thank you Dr. King for your voice that still challenges and calls us to a higher standard even today.
"I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious-education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Walleye gave a clarion call for defiance and .hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"
Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? l am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great- grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.
There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators"' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide. and gladiatorial contests.
Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.
But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century." - Martin Luther King Jr. April, 1963... More items are available in my News Archive
