Harry Potter and my imagination...

I had been moving through the 759 pages of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" this past week and today I decided to commit myself to getting through a major portion of it. I've read the previous six and have enjoyed them for a variety of different reasons. I've watched the books move from playful and adventurous to downright frightening and very dark indeed. I am not a fanatic by any stretch but I made sure that those who had read the book didn't tell me anything as I wanted to experience it for myself. A true confession is that I don't read books like I should (see it's not only blogging that I have trouble with!) but when I get into it, I love being able to imagine what is happening.

It's so easy to sit down in front of the television and allow someone to show me what should be happening in a certain scene but I believe in doing so we don't use a wonderful gift that God has given to us, creativity and imagination. As for the Harry Potter series, I've seen the movies and now have faces and images for a variety of the people and places but that doesn't stop my imagination from getting into gear as I move from page to page and scene to scene. What does Godric Hollow really look like? What was the view as Harry and Hermoine moved around a local church on Christmas eve? What did Hogwarts look like as all gathered waiting for the final showdown? Do you see what I mean? I know that when the movie comes out they will tell me all about these things but until then, I can only imagine and I really like that freedom.

I wonder if we've lost that freedom when it comes to being the local church and more specifically followers of Jesus Christ. Think about it...who taught us what Jesus looked like, what the church should and shouldn't do, and how we are to act as reconciled children of God? Did they say that we had to act a certain way or else? Did they tell us that Jesus was white skinned with pretty brown hair and a nice beard? When was the first time we saw a picture of Jesus laughing?

Why is it that we've decided to limit worship to just one hour or maybe 90 minutes if we've got a special event going on - but no more than once a month or so...I believe we need to remember the gift of imagination and creativity as the church and as followers of Jesus Christ. I believe that if we've not seen something done before as a style of worship, we should try it as long as it glorifies God and invites others, and us, to grow in our relationship with Jesus. Many of our "mainline" churches today have a thought process of how church should be and we tend to stay with it. We don't step out of the box except on occasion because it's new and unchartered territory to explore.

Wait a minute! That's it! When the disciples walked with Jesus, they didn't have it all laid out for them and still they followed. When Jesus died, was raised, and went to sit at the right hand of God, they moved forward, not always with comfort and certainly uncertain of many things, but still they went along. They made church as it was revealed to them. They adjusted, they were creative (somewhat anyway...) and they were church!

Reading Harry Potter reminded me of how important our imagination is to me and as you can see, it set me off on thinking about how importaint that imagination is when we are the church in worshipful ministry to all the world in the name of Christ and presence of the Holy Spirit. What do you think???

Coming soon...my thoughts on Harry Potter and the last book...