...and also with you!

My friend Andy asked me to write for his blog this week on the peace of Christ, what it means to me, and where I see it working. He also asked that I touch on how I witness this peace when it is passed in the church. I thought since I put it on his I could put it on mine:)

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I’m an extrovert, and have a bodily-kinesthetic spirituality. These things may not mean anything to many people, but for me it means realizing how I interact with and experience God. There are so many times that I get caught up in my daily routine (or trying to make one), or the wonder of what will come next, that I’ll fail to stop and take a look around. Yet, still, more often than not, the peace of Christ finds me through sight or feeling.

The peace of Christ most recently has been revealed to me through playing baseball with inner city youth, sitting and eating dinner with a homeless person, or singing with the youth group at the top of my lungs. During these times I know exactly what it is to be fully peaceful in the one who has given me that peace. When I am in these places nothing else in the world matters and it seems as though from the bottom of my heart I know that this is exactly what ministry is about. To me the peace of Christ is about love. It’s about recognizing an all encompassing love that we are offered and given, freely, and recognizing Christ in others. Yet at the same time we are given a responsibility to spread that peace to everyone, not just those in our own communities.

I am a hugger. For the most part that means that during the peace of Christ I’ll hug you if I know you somewhat well. Even though it is usually limited to a few short seconds, in that time I want so badly for the other person to find peace in their life. To me the peace of Christ means finding peace in who we are called to be by Christ. We are to live a life worthy of the calling. When we pass the peace at church, do we do so as a welcome, a good morning “hello”, or are we truly hoping that the peace that we hope for in Christ is being shaken through our hands or spread through our hug to the other person, and to us in return?

The peace of Christ that we spread in church affects how I try to live into and spread that peace in the world through my own life. The most important part of the peace of Christ that I take from church is looking around and seeing all that these people I know so well have done for each other and people that they may not ever get to meet. I see them being witnesses of Christ to each other and upholding their baptismal vows inside and outside of the walls of the church.