I recently returned from a business trip/conference for the company I work for. My job is endlessly challenging and for the most part enjoyable. But at the end of the day, it is not me. As I sat through the conference and listened to discussions about profit, revenue, best practices, professional excellence and many others topics...my brain was busy thinking about my church, the church of today, the church of tomorrow and captivated my life is by God's mission. I'm fully preoccupied by how the church has changed since the time Jesus and by how the church has to change for the future. Money is nice, my job is great, free business trip to Boston is cool - but God's mission is intoxicating. I echo the words of Brueggeman in his article 'Haunted Book - Haunted People.' I'm haunted, captivated, motivate, disturbed and energized by God's words to us.

"We are, all of us, children of the biblical text. We have been conceived and birthed, generated and summoned, given life, by this text and none other. This text keeps having its say among us, by translation and interpretation, by commentary and proclamation, by study and enactment. We must always again, always afresh in every circumstance, come to terms with it. We spend our life struggling with this text, sometimes struggling for the text, sometimes struggling against the text. The text always has its say among us; it will not go away. Its voice is a haunting one, sounding promises, uttering commands, voicing stories, proclaiming oracles, ejaculating pain, authoring hope. The voice of the text haunts us because we know very well it is a human text filled with endless critical problems—and yet we hear in it the very voice of God: majestic sovereignty, awesome holiness, passionate grace, weakness made strong. Because of this text, which will not go away or finally keep silent, we live haunted lives, filled with yearnings for what is not in hand, promises not yet filled, commands not yet obeyed, desires not yet granted, neighbors not yet loved. The old text becomes new text; old story becomes new song. For all those reasons, in gratitude and awe and fresh resolve, we celebrate the new, revised translation, made freshly aware by it that we are indeed haunted children of this haunting text. And because the text will not go away or be silent, we are destined to be endlessly haunted, uneasy, restless, and on the way." (Copyright © 1991 by Word & World, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. All rights reserved)