I found this on the naked pastor blog site... he does a few cartoons and this one is ironically true... churches seem to do better when they emphasise rules more than grace.
Maybe it is because the majority of people inclined to an institutional way of expressing their faith are like the idea of certitudes and rules... I'm a grace man myself... I'm inclined to think that God can work stuff out with people without my having to be too hard about defining the parameters or placing limits or making judgements.
I think God is in the door opening business while much of the church's expression seems to be about building walls and securing the doors and windows.
Frederick Buechner makes a good call on grace in his book Wishful Thinking... he defines grace in terms of God's generous unconditional love meaning for us that 'there's nothing you have to do, there's nothing you have to do, there's nothing you have to do.'
So often after I have preached God's unconditional love and grace someone comes up to me and says, yes, but... Why don't we just stop at yes and see what happens? I think that if people get the dimensions of God's 'yes' they will soon want to think about what kind of response they can make... I think God has a way of drawing that out of us without others having to take over as managers!
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