For the seventh time in my life, I went to Paradise. Not the Muslim one nor even the Christian one, but rather Paradise, California. Now having lived in four countries and having visited some 30 plus other countries, I think that I can safely said that Paradise is, um, Paradise. All cliché’s aside, Paradise California is a lovely place. It’s always hard to go somewhere well after having been in Paradise for any length of time.
Yet what makes Paradise a paradise is not merely the location nor the vistas nor the mountians nor the lakes nor the rivers nor the wildlife nor the peacefulness of a small wonderful town. It’s the people of Paradise that make Paradise a paradise.
And as I think about the last week of my life in Paradise and all that happened there and all the connections made there and all the incredible people I was blessed to meet, I came to realize that there is a great spiritual lesson here for the church and for the Church. That heaven or the church and eventually the Church will be a heaven or hell or paradise because of the character and integrity of the people that populate it . . . or not. What an indictment to our modern evangelical movement, and what a challenge. After all, once you have been to paradise, you rarely want to go somewhere else.
