May 19, 2009

No one in the house was very healthy today. And everybody in Central Florida knows that it has rained nearly non-stop for over 36 hours now.  I just re-organized the DR site  (deadright.net) so that it will work a little better. I haven't learned how to edit the Guestbook comments as you probably can tell. But, one thing at a time, it will happen.

Today I added the page of Quotes and Excerpts from Watchman Nee. He has written so much on this subject that he cannot be ignored, though there are some that would like to.  As you can tell from the Wikipedia page on Watchman Nee, his opposition to denominations brought him almost as much grief from Christians as his testimony for Jesus did from the Communists. Mr. Nee is credited with the existence of 700 new churches before his death and 2600 at present, mostly inside Communist China.  My guess is that many of them are experiencing a depth of Christlikeness that we in the west cannot imagine. I also suspect that 'legalism' and something like a denomination exist there now in ways that he would have opposed. He had been misunderstood and misrepresented so badly, that he once said, if he were really like that, he would oppose himself!  I used to think some of his writing were too hard to understand, and therefore would not be very helpful. But he really was helpful, because I was forced to find a way to understand his perspective. I found myself adapting to a perspective on the exchanged life of Christ living through me, that has stayed with me through many ups and downs of a lifetime in ministry.

On a personal note, last night, on my way home from a rehearsal, my car died. I knew that I was going to be spending some time waiting for a tow-truck, and I was looking forward to praying while I waited, but, things quickly got complicated and it was clear that something else was about to happen. It ended up being a divine appointment.  The man who was sent to help me was a Marine who still has a bullet in his back courtesy of the Taliban. We had just been preparing a song called "Blades of Grass and Pure White Stones" that we will be using in our worship service this Sunday, in honor of our veterans on Memorial Day. It includes a video that I think was made at Arlington.  I asked the young man if he lost any friends in the war. He said "A lot."  I invited him to the service, and several people are already praying for him. If you want to pray for him, we will call him "Woody."

Richard