Emerging Frustrations

Over the past year or so, it seems like about half a dozen or so churches popping up in the Indianapolis area under the umbrella of being “emergent” (however you choose to define the term; Lord knows I’ve tried before). The Dwelling Place is often called an emergent church (and I have no problem being labeled such), although we tend to refer to ourselves as a missional church (why? Because like any other “denomination”, the term “emergent” comes with a lot of baggage/doesn’t seem to mean anything to most people; whereas the word “missional” people can intuitively grasp).

There has been some great posts on the different models of emerging churches, but I’m much more of a pragmatist than theologian/philosopher. For me, in practice, churches that call themselves emergent tend to fall into one of three camps:

1. Too hip by half. These are what I call the “trappings” brand of churches. It was part of my lament from attending the 2004 Emergent Convention. I saw a lot of people over-emphasizing cosmetic changes and doing creative/“edgy” things almost for their own sake. A more cynical person would accuse them of attempting to re-create their college praise experience or venting their youth leader traumas. At any rate, they seem to be the equivalent to traditional/contemporary worship schisms where the only difference in the service was the brand of music (hymns vs. choruses) played.

2. Traditional looking. When all is said and done, I don’t think The Dwelling Place looks overtly much different than the kind of church I grew up with. Occasionally, candles and media clips are used, but for the most part, none of the boogeyman aspects people have attached to the word “emergent” could be seen there. (One friend of mine said that "I don't know why you don't just call yourself American Orthodox and be done with it.")

3. The picnic set. Foregoing entire the idea of organized “church”, they’ve abandoned anything resembling a traditional model. You never know where you’ll find them (though a coffee shop is a pretty good guess. Emergent folks tend to love coffee and beer.)

So what makes them emergent? Maybe it can be described as an attitude, a matter of their posture. What I mean is that they are about conversation and questioning, meeting people where they are, and realizing that if we can’t be certain about anything, we can learn from anyone. This includes the consumeristic folks in need of the familiar, that is, they need the “look” of the kind of church they grew up in, even though they know they will be stretched out of that mindset (too often emergent folks have a chip on their shoulder against “churched” folk). In other words, there is room for all.

At the same time, they can’t neglect the business of church. Church isn’t always going to look the same. However, I do have a concern about the picnic types. I understand that spiritual times and conversations can be had with a gathering of friends watching an episode of Lost or getting together at a coffee house. The Holy Spirit is present (as the verse goes, where two or more are gathered), so I don’t want to sell Her short.

It’s just that in our hyper-individualistic reaction to the idea of church (and the need to be constantly entertained), we can’t forget the business of church. Spiritual formation. Discipleship. Communion. Being Transformational.

We are to become new creatures, a people of God. Corporate worship should neither be a pep rally nor a lecture hall, but a place for interacting with God, the Word, and the Table (Communion). It should shape who we are. Our individual inner journeys should lead to a heart change and from that heart change, we should be lead to an outward journey of loving other people – done in community.

Jesus already told us the church is a mess and that He’ll sort it out in the end. In the mean time, welcome the stranger and join with others. Continue God’s mission (because He’s already at work) of redeeming the world (the missional aspect of what we should be about). Whether we eat or go to parties, our lives are a mission, an incarnational ministry. And only through continual incarnation is the work of the church done.

I believe in God. I believe in the church.

Still, I always have to question any organization that will have me as a member.


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Growing Through Disillusionment*

The other night a group of us were out together: Maurice Broaddus Rob Rolfingsmeyer, Rich Vincent, and Lauren David. We hate to shatter any illusions, but during the course of our discussion we came to the startling conclusion that we can be asses (except for Lauren). It’s not like any of us set out to be the Dr. House of the theological set, it’s more of a resignation to the facts. We’re not going out of our way to be an ass, we simply know we can be asses. And yet the question comes up “do we have any business attempting to model what the church should be about, much less the love of Christ?”

We have a certain idea of what a saint is and are too quick to label people saints without considering what we mean by the term. After all, even the best of people are but flawed vessels, yet flawed vessels are the only kind of person God works through. To quote Miroslav Volf, “I am not a Christian because of the church, but because of the gospel. However, it was only through the broken church that I received the gospel. Because of the gospel, I participate in the church.” Think of some of the greats. Mother Theresa of Calcutta was known for her temper and how mean she could be. Francis of Assisi hated lepers despite talking about how much we should love everyone. Yet God manages to continue His work through us.

It’s easy to fall into cynicism. A cynic is a frustrated idealist, with the emptiness they so often experience being a symptom of their inability to let go of their idealism. Most people are idealists at first but there must come a time in everyone’s lives when your ideals and your dreams must be measured against reality; where “what could be” and “what ought to be” is measured against “what is.” The false facades begin to crumble and those things which had been so solid and so true are not able to withstand the crush of practicality. What do we do when this happens? How do we handle our disappointment with the truth of life itself? It’s what we do with these questions that end up fundamentally shaping our mature selves. Do we hide in a corner and deny those things that seem to be crushing defeats? Do we toss up our hands in frustrated resignation and give up on whatever it is that we’d dreamed of for so long?

Such profound disillusion is often wrestled with the transition from childhood to adulthood (and thus probably a contributing factor to the condition of being a spiritual teenager). Starting with your parents and moving onto the institutions you want to hold dear (school, the government, etc.), it becomes a struggle to survive nothing, and no one, being as you thought they were.

There is an option that allows for growth and maturity in our lives. From its very foundation it is frightening and tends to take a lot of work (some of which may call for sacrifices which you’d never imagined). Fusing your ideals with the reality you have to work with. Hunting down those parts of your ideals that are able to be sacrificed without losing the whole and learning to integrate new ideas and new thoughts which previously seemed foreign and even counter to what you held so dear. Sometimes it calls for a delicate shifting of boundaries without sacrificing the core of your beliefs. Sometimes even the core must be discarded.

It’s not so easy to make the changes in our lives necessary to balance reality with ideals. It’s an uncertain time fraught with error and simply speaking, those mistakes must be made. If there is to be any room for growth you need to be unashamed of your own fallibility. Your mistakes are what mold and shape you if you learn from them. The lessons rarely come easy and at times can be quite frustrating.

We have faults and we make mistakes, so we’re going to need your grace as we journey together. We keep in mind the words of a friend of ours: “Instead of talking about what horrible people we are, why don't you go out and try to be the people you wish we were? If we do such a horrific job at loving people, why don't you go show us how it's done? If we are incapable of meeting hard to like people where they are at, why don't you go meet them where they are at?”

*A Maurice and Rob tag-team blog effort. With Lauren as the cheerleader.


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Horror Convention in Church?

I dream of being picketed.

Sometimes I think we confuse church with a building. The church I attend, The Dwelling Place, is hosting a gathering called “Continuing Conversations” (aka, Mo*Con II) on July 28-29th. It’s a daylong event where I have invited some horror writing friends of mine (Gary Braunbeck, Lucy Snyder, Brian Keene, Wrath James White) to come and speak. We’re going to talk about how our respective faiths impact our writing, the pursuit of being better writers, and even the impact of race when it comes to writing. Religion, art, and race - nothing too controversial.

Yes, it is a “convention” of horror writers. No, not all of us are Christian or even believe in God. That’s the point – all are welcome. So I thought I’d clarify a few points.

The chief complaint is “you can’t do that in a church.” Really? As a friend of mine said, “you may want to consider taking the toilets out cause that means folks are crapping in church, too.” What is church? The building we meet in is the old Marion County Health Department building. It is a building. There is nothing “sacred” about it until a sacred space is carved out … by the people. The church is people, not a building.

Church is a communal expression of faith, to pursue spiritual formation to be the kind of people God wants us to be. To be a safe place to ask and wrestle with spiritual questions. Whose mandate should include building a sense of community, loving each other, and serving the world, all in the name of Christ. Why can’t we carve out a sacred space with horror writers? If Sunday morning we talk about doubting God and discuss that reality, is the church not the best place to do it?

This is how we are working out being a missional community: us inviting people in and those people actually coming (and made to feel welcome). We get to see “their” world and they get to see “ours”. So feel free to protest.


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Making Your Pastor’s Job Easier

“Give a bonus to leaders who do a good job, especially the ones who work hard at preaching and teaching.” I Timothy 5:17 (The Message)

I’ve often railed about our consumer mentality as church-goers, the “me, me, me” spirit of people coming to a gathering to have their needs met. To be spiritually entertained. There are times when you simply need the gathering to prop you up, to realign your spirit back into the rhythm of God. However, there are times when the gathering needs you. So how can participation in the gathering be your act of service?

-Prepare yourself for worship before you get there. Pray in the car on the way to church. Listen to whatever music pumps you up. Enjoy the silence in order to meditate on the things of God. I realize this is often easier said than done: I have two children.

-Regular attendance. Nothing deflates a speaker faster than speaking to empty chairs. Not that they write sermons directed at folks, but pastors talk to their people through the week. They know the concerns of their flock, what they are going through, what might speak to them. Only to see them not there come Sunday morning.

-Participate in the service. Pray. Pay attention. Communion. Being a member of the “bride of Christ” means participating in the worship (the purpose of the gathering). Reading the Scriptures, hearing them preached, reciting the creeds and confessions, and remembering our baptism with one another.

How might this spirit impact a community? To realize that you aren’t there for a service, but to serve. Not there to leech from others—even if it’s just a matter of being a pew potato/there to be “fed”—but rather to contribute.

You aren’t going to feel moved every week. The sermon might not be clicking, the music might have left you flat, the mood of the congregation (or more likely you) might seem off. You might check out of the gathering, go have a smoke, go hang out, find a quiet spot just to be. That’s fine. However, sometimes, you ought to consider staying in it, if only to encourage the pastor. Lord knows he’s heard enough of your complaints.


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Belong Before You Believe

The church should be countercultural, a school of life, a pocket of resistance against the status quo, a foretaste (and first fruit) of things to come. It isn’t always.

The question becomes, should we join a church? (The short answer is “yes” and I’ll now refer you to “Why go to a church service?”). The issue that fascinates me is the one of how and why we go about becoming “members” of a church, because there are some real consequences to this decision.

Some people just aren’t joiners, or at least want no part of the rigamarole of joining. Whenever I’ve joined a church in the past, there were forms and doctrine statements that I had to sign to attest to their beliefs. I have NEVER been to a church were my beliefs lined up perfectly with theirs (mostly I skim them to see whether or not I can still drink). More than once I’ve told them that I can’t sign their membership papers because they would be making me lie to them (usually, they say that it’s just an acknowledgment that we know what the church believes. I still couldn’t shake the feeling like I was being Mirandized). Some churches have made me go through classes, as if you could actually flunk out (Lord knows, to my wife’s dismay, I’ve tried). Most times, joining a church has been more like an arranged marriage: can we live with each other.

I think any regular attender is a member. By the power of their presence, they have placed themselves under that church’s “authority,” as it were, to speak into their lives. One of the church’s role is to facilitate people into the formation of Christ’s image and I understand that trying to get some manner of commitment out of them would ease that process. And I get the frustration that some leaders have when their members have a lackadaisical attitude toward regular attendance.

But you know what? I would seriously consider not joining a church. Seriously. If one of the church's roles is to make disciples, we do that (practically speaking) by being a part of people's lives and butting into them. In fact, in this regard, I don't see the church operating much differently than, say, AA (or insert whatever you want for what it is the church is trying to get you up those 12 steps to solve). Frankly, I might even go one step further and say don't be a part of any close circle of friends. Only this past week I was asked whether or not a friend's situation had deteriorated to the point of needing an intervention. An intervention certainly sounds like a group of us taking it upon ourselves to butt in where we aren't particularly wanted.

I would enter into joining a faith community with my eyes wide open to the fact that being a part of a church body means you are inviting them into your life every bit as much as they are inviting you into theirs. That's the nature of relationships and the reality of community. The deeper the relationship, the more likely butting in and holding each other into account there will be. So if I wanted to do whatever I wanted, with people being allowed to speak into my life when I want them to and only in the areas I want them, I wouldn't join any faith community - especially a smaller one where people are more likely to know me.

If you are going to speak into my life, you have to have a relationship with me. More than an “I recognize your face/I know your name” relationship. We have to have lived life together. Shared times. Then you’ve earned the right to speak into my life. People need to belong before they believe, even if they never believe. The church should be a hospice, a safe haven where people can work out their questions. Allowing doubts, allowing people of differing beliefs, doesn’t change what you believe. Accepting and welcoming people where they are and as they are doesn’t change what we believe the Bible has to say about what’s right or wrong. We can’t just be about wagging fingers at one another.


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Church is Not a Building

I think the sentiment that church really doesn't happen on Sunday is total crap (to put it bluntly). It goes against centuries of tradition - both Jewish and Christian. The pinnacle of Israel's and the Church's formation took place in public liturgical worship. The services really meant something to them. Sure, this can be abused, but so can the idea that Sunday church doesn't matter, and only picnics in the park do. For too long, evangelical Christians have been too critical of those who faithfully attend Sunday worship as if they are second-rate Christians, as if they don't know true community, as if they are not really committed, etc. Sadly, we reap what we sow: We can't talk this for long without undermining Sunday worship. I know, for some, I sound like a museum-piece... and that's ok. I don't mind. I know that it is very cool and hip right now to criticize the church, be cynical about its future, disparage its workers, and pretend that organization is the devil's greatest work. (Interestingly, the same folk who decry "organized" religion would demand that their hospital, library, and school be organized.) But I can vouch as a pastor who prayerfully puts in long hours in order to make sure my flock is spiritually fed each week, that a low attendance impacts my spirit. I preach better when my flock is with me. I preach worse when I feel alone. For more of my rantings on the necessity and centrality of corporate worship, check out my most recent sermon “All Together Now”. Please accept these ravings in the spirit in which they are given - with much love and concern. The pursuit of true spiritual transformation cannot happen apart from self-denying commitment to the good of others, and one way to maintain this stance is to meet together regularly for worship, instruction, and service. No matter how innovative the church becomes, it will never improve on the discipline and rhythm of regular liturgical formation.

(And now a link to Rich’s sermon, All Together Now, his look at Psalm 150 as if offers a concentrated vision the where, why, how, and who of corporate worship.)

Many of us have gone through what Dan Kimboll called Reality Church, the stages of our involvement with the thing we call church. Our reactions to “how we do church” has folks all over the place, calling for more “high” church to the practical eradication of any sort of weekly gathering. I know many folks have wrestled with the disillusionment of seeing some “mega-churches” sprawl out of control, focusing on the building and its maintenance—caught up in empire building—while forgetting about the community, the neighborhood. Church isn’t a place. We’ve come to think of church as that building we go to on Sundays, that performance we go witness, that thing we do.

As I am thinking about the idea of church membership, the koininia, the fellowship, that comes from belonging to a people, I can’t help but recall something I heard about pods of whales. Humpback whales come together, as a pod, with their individual songs. Once they are together, they learn a new song, changing their individual songs, and then go their way to teach their songs to others. Church is a relationship, the developing a community of faith, a sacred space we carve out in our world and lives.

With the common goal of being committed to following Jesus we gather together. The grace of God is a school in Christ and everyone is welcome in the school … but the school is meant to progress you. The school is to “graduate” disciples. The church should be countercultural, a school of life, a pocket of resistance against the status quo, a foretaste (and first fruit) of things to come. It isn’t always.

“It is important to think about the Church not as "over there" but as a community of struggling, weak people of whom we are part and in whom we meet our Lord and Redeemer." --Henry Nouwen


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We Need More than a Prayer Meeting

Local ministers and community leaders will hold a news conference today to discuss crime in Indianapolis. Rev. Charles Harrison, pastor of Barnes United Methodist Church, was a victim of a robbery over the weekend. While at church Sunday evening, he was robbed by three young men. The group will discuss that and other crime issues at 1 p.m. at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. and 30th streets.

What was it that Chris Rock said you should do if you found yourself lost on MLK Jr Street at night? Run! This is more sad than funny as we are coming off one of the most murderous years in our city's history.

We keep waiting for folks, politicians, churches, and community leaders to do more than talk. There comes a point where talk is cheap. When you’ve done all you can do to draw attention to a problem and have to come up or join in with a solution. Maybe we–the people, the community–need to do more to stem the tide of violence where we can. Bear our share of the burden. Warehousing criminals, again, sounds good but isn’t a real solution. That’s society saying that we’ve given up so when you go bad, we’ll just lock you up. Yep, statistically crime will drop. Yep, we will “feel” safer knowing that we’ve thrown away the key. However, this country already has too long a sad history of putting people in chains and we can’t afford any more of those long-term scars on our collective soul.

Too many of us live in an utter state of self-delusion. We think danger is black, brown and poor, and if we can just move far enough away from "those people" in the cities we'll be safe. If we can just find an "all-American" town, life will be better, because "things like this just don't happen here." What has gone wrong and is not TV, rap music, video games or a lack of prayer in school. What went wrong is that we, as a society, decided to ignore dysfunction and violence when it only affected other communities, and thereby blinded themselves to the inevitable creeping of chaos which never remains isolated too long.

Churches are a good correct place to start in the war on crime. The church is supposed to be a reproducing community of authentic disciples who are being equipped as missionaries to be sent out by God. We listen to the questions asked by our community and dialogue over those questions. We don’t force questions that we think our community “should” be asking and provide those answers. That’s not real helpful.

As Christians, we have our identity in Christ. We find our mission in Christ. Missional people might not spend as much time at church because their whole lives are missions. And that mission is connected to social action, the key word being “action”. Not just “press conferences”. But you know what? I know in my heart that these leaders won’t be stopping at this press conference. I’d be willing to bet that this press conference is the beginning of a conversation. A laying out of a vision that will then be taken off camera as people assemble to put “feet” to the vision and do the work.

At least that’s my hope.


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Open Letter to Mega-Churches

You know, I really do love the Church. Like with anything else, it has its problems and I’m not one to shy away from criticizing. Thus my blogs on empire building, reconsidering mega-churches, and the problems of the prosperity gospel.

There comes a point where pastors or churches shift from doing Kingdom work into legacy mode. Where a church decides to spend $12, $22, or $27M dollars on a building project, to create essentially a bigger altar to itself. At what point do you shake yourself and ask what are you doing and who are you doing it for?

The church has adopted the ways of the world and is completely oblivious to it. Copying the attitudes and methods that worked so well for them individually in life and the corporate world.This follows from a mindset that has turned church-goers into consumers of the show: We've become part of the cult of personality, shopping for the speakers who can best tickle our ears, complainers about the music, the lights, the sound, the production - forgetting about what it means to worship. Church became about our needs. We want to be surrounded by a lot of voices, we want programs to keep us in our Christian cocoons, we want to be able to brag about what we can do. In other words,

The church has adopted the ways of the world and isn't aware of it. Though there is often a spirit of generosity, the mindset of such churches extols the virtue of size, power, and influence. They become guilty of pride. The church also values a kind of "collective individualism" as the individual churches want to make names for themselves, want to be able to do what they want, when they want, how they want ... on their terms. They are well-educated, live in nice houses, make nice livings, and are well-respected. They have become about protecting their comfort and thus compromising your first love.

Too often, large or small, churches become about maintenance: their buildings and programs, rallying their flocks behind the latest cause or protest, keeping their numbers up and in the process depersonalizing relationships. Growing by stealing members from other churches and putting butts in pews in order to cultivate pew potatoes is not really growing the Kingdom. Yet as long as butts are accounted for (and giving), they assume that your needs are being met.

Churches, how much of what you do is more about ego and leaving your imprint, your mark, in church history and compromising the Gospel message in the process? Don't be reduced to being about buildings, budgets, and butts.

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Empire Building

The recent trend in the way that churches have for growing the kingdom has me disturbed. I guess it’s because part of me has the feeling that churches have lost track of their mission to be growing the kingdom of God and have become more concerned with extending their own personal empires.

One church I know believes in producing satellite churches. Replicating itself by having videotape services of its worship/preaching time fed to its various branches. In my mind, it’s not different than watching a televangelist or any talking head. Plus I can’t see how that could be pastoring in any conventional sense, though I’m sure that there is an on-site pastor, just not the guy who is doing the teaching. Granted, part of what rubs me the wrong way is the way that this church caters to the white flight phenomenon that’s been going on in the city. Like many churches, it talks about wanting to be a multi-racial church, but has done little to implement this vision other than to stick a “Negroes welcome” sign out front. (Conveniently, all of the satellite churches have sprung up in areas where their members have fled to).

Nor is this limited to white mega-churches. Another local church plants branches all over town, from the inner city to the suburbs (because black folks like the suburbs, too. Either we’ll give you a reason to keep running or at some point folks may recognize that they may all be fleeing from the same thing: the lower class). This pastor used to drive around preaching at each location, arriving at each church just in time to preach then taking off after his ending message point. I’m going to assume that now that they are up to a half a dozen or so locations, this has proven impractical and they have worked out a new system.

The telling sign is that all of the satellites and branches retain the same name, popping up all over town like a McDonald’s franchise. The church essentially maintains brand loyalty. To give the leaders the benefit of the doubt, I bet that they started off with good intentions. They may see the way that they do things as a way of keeping integrity to what they want to do. Their sudden growth was unexpected, and they are in catch up mode, not knowing what to do with the massive numbers of people who attend their services. We’re talking about sincere, good men here, not money grubbing hucksters.

However, at some point, they lost sight of their mission and began serving their institution.

Because of the way many churches are set up, this might be out of the head pastor’s control. The elders, and I don’t want to spin it as them consolidating their power or exerting their control, might not have a vision for how to grow the church. So they fall back on what they know: the business model. The question becomes “how did we get here?”

Part of this is a function of the pastor and the cult of personality that develops around him. Many of these mega-churches have become all about the pastor, his personality, his interpretation of Scripture. What these men have in common are dynamic personalities and a winning speaking ability. In many ways, the head pastor has become the Protestant version of a (mini-) pope. But live by the cult of personality, die by the cult of personality: when that pastor gets sick, moves on, retires, or dies, the churches flounder. Many of their members drift off to the next charismatic preacher or bigger program. Because they came together not to form a community but to be entertained or serviced.

We feed into this in other ways, too. I think one of our problems is we expect the pastor to be this super-Christian. As if they have every gift and can do everything. (this might explain why we also have a habit of putting them on pedestals). Pastors or pastor-teachers are to shepherd and teach; that means they dedicate more of their time to study and preparation. The best leaders recognize their people's gifts and let them run with them appropriately. Somehow this has translated into us feeling more comfortable paying someone to do the "real" work of the church. Almost like "we have staff to look out for folks" so that we don't have to. Money is our contribution, our buy-off, as opposed to having to get off our butts and loving people. We put pastors on a pedestal then act surprised when they topple off.

Corporate policy and philosophy dominate our culture and the church has bought into it. Some people see the main job of the pastor as that of businessman. They see church as a business. The pastor is the CEO. The elders are the board of directors. Tithes become income, or worse, profit. The Gospel becomes the product they’re trying to push. You don’t think we try to advertise our product in the best light? I think the rise of the health and wealth Gospel proves otherwise. They’re marketing religion to the masses. Their congregations are consumers that the church ends up selling bits of its soul to keep happy. It ends up producing consumer-Christians content to drive to whoever pleases them and their needs the most. The church ends up feeding our narcissistic mentality, leading to our constant search for the better speaker– the ones who tickles our ears–with morality as entertainment. And the churches end up competing to for the “found” and forgetting about the “lost”.

It doesn’t stop there. We break down these consumers like they are a part of a targeted market campaign. We divide our community by advertising niches such as age (children’s ministry in two year increments, youth groups) or by life situation (college/career, singles, young marrieds, marrieds, single agains). Hmm, you say that we have trouble building community.

So it’s no surprise when I see various mega-churches turning around and engaging in corporate take overs. These churches take over struggling smaller churches, becoming its own association. I can see why the home church movement has started to build momentum. It’s a reaction to the churches who feel the need to drop $40 million on a new campus because they believe in maximizing their property or that as a bigger church they can do more. Certainly there has to be better uses of money in their own community, much less around the world. Maybe that’s just me.

When all is said and done, I’m not against these churches. There is room for all models of churches. Larger churches can indeed do things and have resources that smaller churches don’t. That doesn’t make them better: smaller churches can do things that larger churches can’t, also. There is plenty of kingdom work to be done, the more laborers the better. But the church has to be about the kingdom work, not lose sight of it in their rush to build their own personal empire.



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Casting a Vision for Church

I’ve been accused of being too critical of something that I supposedly love: my faith and the church. My single point is that there is quite a bit about both that I’ve come to realize that I have to shed if I am to grow. I don’t know if this makes sense, but there were some tenets of Christianity (as had been taught and passed down to me) that had grown to become constraints around me and my walk rather than aids or guides.

Part of it is the love hate relationship that I have with the church. At its worst, the church has sometimes been a place of guilt, crushing, judgment, and fakeness. Our model has been little more than that of a (self-)sanctified country club, more worried about keeping the “wrong types” out, than welcoming all types in. A country club filled with the “Born Agains” who, like it or not, are seen as judgmental, arrogant, narrow-minded, and bigoted religious fanatics. People who forget that people who speak against sin are the ones most in danger of feeling superior to those whose sin they rail against. People who forget that we’re all in the same sin boat.

It’s been my experience that people generally don’t mind Christ or His teachings, it’s the Christians–those who act in His name–that they have problems with. Maybe the protest/in your face model of church activism doesn’t put our best foot forward. Nor does sitting through someone coming to “holler at you for an hour.”

Maybe we shouldn’t have modeled the church after the modern day corporation to where the ABCs of church reality became Audience, Buildings, and Cash.

The biggest culprits (or by-product, I’m not sure which came first anymore) is that spirituality became about being about “me.” We go to church with a consumer mentality: we seek out churches based on who has the best show, where you don’t have to do anything and, heaven forfend, you don’t have to reveal anything. You can just sit and be “fed.”

Whether we realize it or not, many of us have developed very individualized faiths. Sitting in pews, soaking up knowledge, and feeling holy for what we’ve learned; like little sanctimonious pew potatoes. Church had become a collection of individuals: we each had our own Bibles, did our own quiet times, and we had our isolated worship, even when assembled, as we closed our eyes and experienced God ... just us and Him.

Then I come to realize that the church is me, except in macrocosm.

Now, I’ve also come to realize that once you’ve deconstructed a lot of the ways things have been done, you have to start (re-)building something. I firmly believe that at its best, church can be a place of hope, healing, belonging and redemption. The question becomes “how do we get there?” It’s tough switching from a mindset of being to a mindset of doing, so why don’t we start at the beginning: what is church?

Church is a communal expression of faith. Sometimes we get so caught up in the rituals and routines that we lose sight of the fact that they have a point: to form us into the kind of people God wants us to be; to be part of the solution, not the problem. Where a bunch of ordinary nobodies, men and women living and caught up in a story (the story of Creation that had fallen apart). Whose mandate should include building a sense of community, loving each other, and serving the world, all in the name of Christ.

It shouldn’t be as hard as we often make it.

It’s about switching from a club mentality to a mission mentality, a mission of existing for the sake of serving our neighbors.

We are all caught up in empty ways of doing life to one degree or another. Going through the daily grind, going through the motions, un-engaged and missing the point of life. However, even in the ordinary of our lives, God can be found. We can realize that all of Creation, all of life, is sacred. That spiritual living isn’t something just done on Sundays and that everything else–from going to a baseball game to going to a party–is somehow non-spiritual. We can learn what it means to live as we were created to be, fully human, as we engage with the world around us.

We can learn to not be our own worst enemy. To not be a place that beats people up before they can be accepted or have people shun it because they think that to follow Christ means dropping the “fun” things about life in the name of “spirituality”. But rather to be a place of acceptance and community.

A good vision provides excitement, focus, commitment, and meaning while firing up the imagination. To exist to help people resist empty ways of life by becoming fully human in the way of Jesus. To be a Refuge or Sanctuary, a place of rest and freedom to be yourself, where we connect with God and one another by joining in Jesus’ mission to bless the world.

Doesn’t sound too hard. Does it?

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Comment on this bit of rantus interruptus anyway you want (I don’t know where you’re reading it from) or just do so at my message board.

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