The fluff...

AnneB, I think the fluff is anything other than what God has called us to. Is our worship about Him or us. I can tell when it is fluff by when there is a power outage church is cancelled. When we can't use our powerPoint (and by the by I was joking when I referred to using PP at the Pina wedding) electric guitars, overheads, mood lights, wireless microphones, organs, parking ushers' orange vests, tape recorders, children's message, hearing adaptors...

I have sat in more committee meetings that talked about color of carpet, hymns vs praise songs, budgets, parking lots, worship service times, curriculum, prayer conferences, vision statements, church sign policy, wedding policy, sanctuary policy, youth room policy, key checkout policy, policy font policy, choir robes and bells, ... than I have meetings of sitting and listening to what God has to say. We usually announce those days with a special bulletin (there was a meeting on the bulletin once), and give it a spiffy title, usually very old testament sounding, and outlined with key people to do the different parts of the evening, who let us know they are the elders instead of believers. It is not normal for us to just gather, sit down, shut up and listen, there is usually announcements to let people know when the next Christian troopers are meeting, what music the old group is going to exercise to next Thursday, the name of the men's breakfast rightwing speaker who will be speaking on the trouble with the youth of today...

I think we add a lot of meetings to fill up the void of being still and knowing He is God. We have replaced the mystery with fellowship and reading the latest book that explains the formula of happy living. We substitute pain with short concise answers which sound great in the daylight but when you are alone on your pillow at night it seems like it is salt instead of life. We think we are doing wrong when we don't have the answers but I think the questions get bigger and the answers come over a long walk with the Teacher instead of a writer who tells us what the Teacher taught her but isn't necessarily relevant to us. Sometimes we have to discover the answer for ourselves instead of getting something that worked for someone else. One size does not fit all.

Fluff is putting numbers to salvation without rejoicing when one comes to know Him. It is more important to work on the name than the content. Rewarding someone for memorizing scripture but never putting them in a place of risk to use it.

This lifeFAITH we have must be alive and dynamic and can be quiet and brought out and liveout and can't be explained easily and looks different but when view from a distance one sees the same DNA of Christ.

It is alright to like a raspberry mocha as long as you can distinquish between the taste of the coffee and the raspberry, the chocolate, and the milk. But it is not coffee, it is coffee with stuff. I am not trying to be a coffee snob rather I want to become aware of the coffee again.

That is kind of what I mean by fluff. Good night AnneB.