Noisy Cymbals

If you saw our update email a few days ago, you saw that we've got a bunch of speaking and travel to do in the coming weeks. And though we are extremely excited about meeting and serving with new and old friends, it's necessary to check ourselves each time we are asked to go. 

So what if I speak to tens of thousands... if I don't have love, I'm just a big noisy cymbal.

Big noisy cymbals... mic'd up... crashing in a church (or arena) with extreme amounts of reverb and echo. I literally can't think of a better image to be used for describing something so damaging to effective evangelism as that. When St. Paul chose those words in first Corinthians, he couldn't have chosen better. It's the last thing I want to be. The last thing we should want to be in a world starving for truth, beauty and goodness and Christ. 

And so we pray... God give us love, first and foremost, for each other, our children, our ten-foot radius. Give me grace to consider others better than myself, assuming the best and seeing their potential, not judging my neighbors, lest I am judged. When we are asked to speak on your behalf, let us do so with pure intentions. Your Kingdom come, your will be done. Amen.

​Honestly, the Catholic speaker culture makes me feel icky (yup, icky). Cana and I long for a day when it's not necessary at all, when the people of God love their neighbors and their own parishes so much, that it becomes obsolete. But until that day, we'll go where He sends us and preach where we are asked. We just don't want to skip the loving part in the process. 

Peace and Good! 
Ennie

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

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