People are people and only human, prone to failure and shortcomings. But God loves us just the same and is able to work wonders even through our shortcomings. Denominations are a man made construct, and no one has a monopoly on the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, simply because our puny minds cannot possibly comprehend God's wonder in its fullness. We have God's word for illumination and guidance, and each one of us is given a life, a divine sliver of the spirit of God that we are able to share with others and them with us. The Church is not a denomination, it is like a mirror made up of all those shiny broken slivers brought together by God to reflect his glory here on earth.
A convenient commute? I dunno, Leatherneck, I'll tell you a story I know because the fellow involved was my grandmother's brother.
Rev. John Spillenar's father was an itinerant minister who travelled from town to town in the early 1900's, preaching the gospel in the northern lumber and mine camps and farming communities scattered across the bushland of Ontario. These were some tough, hard living men in those camps and he was often not received well. But that did not deter him. In his lifetime, he continued to spread the word, and like the parable of the sower, many of those seeds fell on good ground and took root. The church I grew up in was one of many he planted.
As a young man, his son, Johnny, felt that God was calling him to take the gospel to the far north and he was certain of his instruction... to walk due north, to refuse any ride that anyone should offer him, to keep walking until someone asked him to build a church. So he set out on foot, and 400 miles later arrived in a little northern bush town where a group of people asked him to do just that, please help us build a church.
In that little town called South Porcupine, Johnny helped build a church. But he didn't stop there. Up in the land where the roads end, he got a pilot's license and became a bush pilot for the Lord. In the course of his life, flew throughout the remote and isolated regions of the far north, building 18 churches in the innuit communities there and planting seeds that grew into many more faith communities of believers who gather in homes and in schools.
John went to be with his Lord in 2003, but his work continues to bear fruit in native communities across the far north.
Some commute, eh?
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