You may have or may not have noticed that over half of my entries since Christmas have been about church and community. I’ve been really stretched a lot in this time in my understanding of what a church should look like. The more I study the more I realize how far we are from the truth.
Though I may have bad experiences in churches and don’t ever feel like I fit fully in any one specifically I still think that what we call church today is extremely important. Church today is a Sunday service, a few church friends and maybe a strawberry social every now and then. Church in Acts is everyone selling their possessions, giving to those in need and breaking bread with one another. A notable difference. We are obviously far from the mark of where the church should be, but that doesn’t mean that we should abandon church as it is today because its not there.
I have had these urges for the past few years now. The urge consists of standing up in the middle of a service, shaking a bible, I’d probably be wearing track pants, and yelling at how what is going on isn’t even close to what Christ intended or what Paul instructed. Then I would storm out in a puff, maybe with a small following, and leave the institutional church all together forever. Well that might make for an interesting monthly church bulletin update or family dinner gossip but I don’t think it’s what Christ wants either.
As I study Christ’s intentions more and more I am realizing how important the church is in his plans and purpose. He wants to carry out his plans through the entire body of Christ. Not individual rebels who want to show everyone where they are wrong. While it may be hard to sit in church and to have conversations with those heavenly minded fanatics, we are called to be a body. You can’t be part of the body on your own. The church isn’t perfect but it isn’t completely failing either. In my years working at my home church I saw lots of students give their lives to Christ who are still serving Christ faithfully now and loving people and making a difference in people’s lives.
I don’t believe that we have to be institutionalized Christians just because we go to an institutionalized church. You can serve God and people faithfully under the confines of a church that isn’t perfect. Besides, it’s not the building or the pastors that your serving, it’s the body of Christ and Christ. The true body of Christ can be seen in every congregation, somewhere in there; though given, some are harder than others to find.
So even though our frustrations are merited and it’s hard, we are called to work together. There is no point in getting up and leaving it all together just because its not perfect. Serve Christ and serve people, no matter where you are. In the confines of a Pentecostal congregation, local drop-in center, school residence, CRC youth group or the family that surrounds us we need to love God and love people, that’s it. So don’t get discouraged. It is easy for that to happen. It’s happened to me plenty of times. Instead, be encouraged that God can and will use messed up congregations with messed up people to accomplish his will.
Amen. The church can be screwed up, but it’s what Jesus ordained. And it is wonderful God can use us for his purposes. Peace.
N-Dawg,
You totally rock my world – I seriously wouldn’t of made it through this year counselling free without you.
And your writing is decent too:)
For hundreds if not thousands of years radical people have battled the institutionalized church. probably because the church was never meant to be an institution. Looking back at the years of the reformation and the huge revolution that happened there to the day we live in now where i believe the Church has basically reverted back to being institutional. When you work with street kids in a downtown inner city and the church’s will not allow you to use their space because they do not want the “locals” to come into their building something is wrong. When my vision isnt recognized because as they say it “didnt come from within our congregation” i wonder if we truely are on the same team here. What is the point of the church. Is it to entertain rich suburban christians in our inner cities as they “drop in” on a sunday morning and retreat back to their nice houses as the poor continue to struggle with life. As I work with many young adults i see a positive frustration with the structure of the church. They are sick of the way things are going and the fact there there is no passion and mission amongst their local congregations. Our older generation has raped the church of its passion for the lost. And i believe for that the have much to answer for. I just pray that My generation will take this organism of church and allow God to bring it back to the community it was indended to be….
A-men.