This week’s guest post is by Small Groups Pastor Kester Smith.
Dear Christ Church,
“That is what Christianity is all about.
Now believe it and live it
as if your life depended on it,
because it does.”
This is how Frederick Bauerschmidt’s book The Love That Is God ends. But to tell you that isn’t to spoil the ending, because it’s the beginning and middle as well. Bauerschmidt has written a book intended to boil down the Christian faith to its essence, and the essence of the faith is the God who loves so deeply, who defines love so completely, that we can truly say that God is Love.
This coming Lenten season, Christ Church will be reading Bauerschmidt’s book together in order to learn more about and live more deeply into the Love that is God. Our hope is that each of you will pick up a copy, that you might read it with a friend, that you might form a small book club, that however you choose to read it, you will choose to read it and join in the larger conversation Christ Church will be having together as a congregation.
Lent is a season that includes prayerful contemplation and a simplifying of our lives, stripping away distractions and turning down the noise. Our hope is that Bauerschmidt’s book, and our shared conversation around it, will serve to call our attention back to the core of our Christian faith and commitments.
It is always a good thing to be reminded of the core of our faith, to be drawn more deeply into the story God is telling, to get to the essence of what we’re talking about when we talk about God. Frederick Bauerschmidt’s The Love That Is God is an invitation to do just that, to get back to the basics of what Christianity is all about and then to “believe it and live it as if your life depended on it, because it does.”
May you live into the Love that is God this week.
Peace,
Kester