In recent weeks, I have had numerous conversations on various topics regarding church. I have found that my responses and/or ideas seem to be somewhat offensive or disheartening to the people I have spoken with. So I decided to sit and collect my thoughts on this topic in response to some of these "offensive" conversations. As I began to organize these thoughts, I found that they were much more extensive than even I thought. I decided to make this a series of posts so it's not too long. This is the first of what will be a few posts over the coming days/weeks.
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU CONTINUE:
- I am no authority on church. I will never claim to be one; however, it has been where I have grown up and made some of the most defining observations and realizations of my life.
- I fully understand that to some, I have an alleged attitude of indifference towards church...this is not true. In fact, I believe that connection to a church body is extremely important to our spiritual health and well-being.
- I am not pointing fingers. I use the word "we" because these are things that I feel I am guilty of as well, being a part of a church body myself.
- Please bear with me and stay open minded...this is not a church-bashing rant.
- Lastly, in these posts I refer collectively to all of my church-going experiences; Not any one church specifically.
Having said that, my issue is with how much the “church” has over complicated and lost sight of its original purpose. In the New Testament when Christianity was under immense scrutiny and persecution, the body of Christ (or “church”) was a safe haven for victims of this persecution. I feel like in our attempt to separate ourselves from the “world,” we have gone off balance. We have not only alienated the world so that we can’t reach them, but we have also alienated one another. My heart is so grieved when I sit in church on a Sunday morning and not only feel lost myself, but look around and see a whole room full of lost people…ironic huh? Now, it is my belief that somewhere we lost the essence of our identity as a body and that is what bothers me. That’s not to say that I’m one of those bitter church-kids (though there is grace for them too) that has jumped on that “Christianity is the new face of consumerism with its made to order mega church and superstar pastors blah, blah, blah.” I just feel like as a whole, our humanity has blinded us to the point of making church about us, rather than God and His desires. Consider this: What kind of crazy idea would it be, to return to and follow the blueprint that the originator of Christianity laid out?
I believe that at the core of His ministry, Jesus just talked to people. Sometimes he taught in a teacher-student kind of way. And others, he sat around a table eating and discussing things, in a more informal family-get-together kind of way. Now, I am no Theologian or Bible scholar, but what I believe made Jesus so effective (other than the obvious; being the Son of God thing) was the way in which he spoke. I imagine him to been very articulate, but not in an irritating, know-it-all way (even though He does know it all). I imagine him to have explained things in a way that both the oldest, wisest person could understand, as well as a little child. I think where we have missed the point a little is in the way we talk about spirituality and Christianity. I am not naïve enough to think that these topics are unimportant and should be ignored, but I feel that we over-spiritualize the core, simplistic foundation of our beliefs. We strive so hard to understand the inner workings of God, so we read massive books and take classes (which I’m not saying are bad) all the while “forgetting” that we are in an eternal relationship with the One who wrote the book from start to finish; the same one who wrote each of our individual books. The Creator of the universe and everything in it. We have this indescribable relationship with this amazing being, yet we still refer to man to figure Him out. In our attempt to have this “look to man” approach toward relationship with God we have lost sight of the fact that for some people, we are the only light they will see…so shouldn’t they be able to see Him in us? Especially if that is the only glimpse they will see. So hypothetically, say they see Him in us and then we proceed to invite them to “church”…that could sometimes be the worst possible thing we could do! Ha-ha. Have you ever been in a church for the first time and felt like you were in a room full of people that needed to be institutionalized? Yes, I know, that is an exaggeration, but sometimes not that far off. For someone on the “outside” coming into a church for the first time can be kinda scary. We’re full of strong opinions. Opinions about who one should vote for, what book we should read, what translation of the Bible to read, how you should feel about particular social issues, etc. All the while we are not really introducing them to true insight of who God is. So often church has been used as a platform to impose one’s opinions and that is why people are so turned off by it. People are searching and we should be the place where they overwhelmingly find God’s love and grace.
For now, that’s where I'll stop. Food for thought: If you were the only glimpse of God’s love and grace to someone that was desperately searching for it, how well would you represent? From your experience, what would you change about the church’s approach, and how does that relate to you? What small part can you play in making it happen?
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