{"id":3330,"date":"2025-12-15T09:56:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T14:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/?p=3330"},"modified":"2025-12-15T09:56:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T14:56:19","slug":"knocking-at-your-church-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/knocking-at-your-church-door\/","title":{"rendered":"Knocking at Your Church Door"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a famous passage that most Christians will recognize — Revelation 3:20 — John the Revelator quotes the glorified Jesus as saying,<\/p>\n

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For most of my life, that verse was taught to me on a personal level:<\/strong> that Jesus stood at the door of my heart<\/em> and knocked. From that perspective, it was my choice to respond, to “let Jesus into my heart” as the expression goes. It was a call to conversion, to salvation.<\/p>\n

Of late, however, I’ve thought more of Scripture as being aimed at communities rather than individuals — that was one of the central ideas of A Church More Like Christ<\/a><\/em>, after all — and in fact that section of Revelation was addressed to “the angel of the church in Laodicea.”<\/p>\n

So, do you think your church — either the leaders or members — has ever read that passage as<\/p>\n

Behold, I stand at the door of your church<\/strong> and knock….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

?<\/p>\n

And if they were to read it that way, how quick would they be to open the door?<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

I believe that a church that opens its door to the Lord, that lets him inside in a real and authentic way, has the potential (to paraphrase the back cover copy of my book) to be a force for good, a light in the darkness, and an outpost of God’s kingdom in this world. It has the potential to be a place where the wounded find comfort and healing, the broken find repair and restoration, and the vulnerable find help and hope.<\/p>\n

I could be wrong, but that, I think, is what every Christian church should be.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

For other musings and oddball ideas,
\n– Take a look at A Church More Like Christ<\/a><\/em>, awarded a Silver medal by the Military Writers Society of America
\n– Or my other MWSA Silver medalist, Elements of War<\/a><\/em>
\n– Or my Amazon Page<\/a>, my Bandcamp Page<\/a>, or just my website<\/a><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a famous passage that most Christians will recognize — Revelation 3:20 — John the Revelator quotes the glorified Jesus as saying, Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him…. For most of \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[109,110],"class_list":["post-3330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","tag-christianity","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3331,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330\/revisions\/3331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}