In my previous blog I talked about the radical Jesus and how He began a revolution. I want to continue with this idea, but applying it more to the church. I want to warn you that some of these ideas may be new and offensive. So keep an open mind.
I will be speaking both about THE Church (with a capital C), meaning the universal Church, the body of believers everywhere as Christ intended THE Church; which is separate from church (small c), meaning the building or single congregation of believers.
I feel that Americans have a very skewed idea of the Church. What exactly is the Church? Some might say it’s an organization, others might say it’s the people. I believe that the Church is definitely not a place, but it’s the Body of Christ with not a lot of guidelines. I feel that my church in Redding is doing great things and is seeking the heart of God and pursuing the things that He is passionate about. Their mission statement is “We love, we make disciples…We love God, we love each other, we love the world, we love the least.” When the disciples ask Jesus what the greatest commandment is, He tells them it is to love God and to love others. Forgive me if you disagree, but honestly, arguments about baptism, communion, denomination, how or when to worship, and other secondary issues, are really just that: secondary. They don’t affect a person’s salvation. What matters most is the belief in the Holy Trinity, the Catholic [Universal] Church, to care for God’s children (believers and non-believers), and to be missional in their intent.
What did the Acts Church look like? If you read the book of Acts you will see that the Church revolved around the people and looking out for each other and meeting the needs of each one. Most times the churches met in houses and weren’t concerned about preachers, buildings, or any of that. The Exiles book that I’ve been reading has challenged me to look outside the box of what a church should look like. A church is the people, and though we’ve generally confined it to four-walls and pews, this isn’t the Church. This is one place where a church may meet, but we shouldn’t limit it to that. I get excited when I think about expanding the walls of the Church. In my opinion, a church can meet anywhere. When we think about what Jesus was doing while on the earth, he went TO the people. Like I said in my last blog, He wasn’t idly sitting inside a building waiting for something to happen. He sought people out and ministered to them. And isn’t this the main purpose for the Church? To reach others who do not know Christ while encouraging each other? I believe that we need to be more intentional about going out to where the people are. I recently read about a guy who was ADD and had a hard time sitting still in church. So instead, he got together with some friends and they went out boating each Sunday morning. Before they would go out, he would read Scripture and they would pray together. Soon more and more people were showing up to learn from and pray with this guy. It turned into a group of more than 50 that would do Church together, go boating, and break bread together every Sunday. This guy brought people to Christ because he met them where they were at. This is the kind of church I want to be a part of. One that is limitless. An Indian church planter is quoted as saying, “You have a Bible? You can read? Then you can start a church.”
Of course there are challenges to this as well. We can’t simply depend on this type of occasional, irregular gatherings of people. We definitely need more than that. We are called to live life together, a type of communal faith.
What should a church do? It should meet the needs of not only those in the church, but those in their community and those in the world. This is huge! We live in God’s world and we are called to take care of His physical world, and also to fight injustice. If we as the Church aren’t going to fight for the rights of people in this world, who will? The dehumanization of people is happening globally, and it’s real! Injustice is a whole other topic that I won’t address at the moment. It’s equally as important, but just so happens to be one that we can easily be apathetic about.
Let me stop and examine the church as we see and experience it now. This isn’t an opportunity for me to disagree with what church looks like today, but rather an opportunity to compare it with Jesus’ original intentions. Already when you walk into a church, there tends to be an “us” and “them” mentality. The preacher/minister/pastor stands at the front and preaches, the worship team leads in musical worship, and everyone else sits passively in their seats. I think it’s common knowledge that something like 10% of the church body is doing 100% of the “duties” like teaching, preaching, and serving. Jesus didn’t call us to be passive!!
The church as a whole is doing good things. We have food distribution programs, outreaches, youth camps, clothes distribution, homeless ministries, etc. These are all great things. But I believe there is so much more and there isn’t a formula to it. God isn’t a formula God. He has called His Church to live outside of society, work together on the task at hand, be outwardly rather than inwardly focused, and push society forward. Are our churches communities of honesty, openness, hospitality, and genuine love? I mean really, are they? What do people think when they walk in the doors? Is it a community or is it just a once a week gathering to make us feel like good Christians? What are we doing for the people who walk into our doors? What do they see? Do they see a lifestyle? Because it should be.
This is a lot to take it and process. I’m still doing just that. Hope my thoughts haven’t been too jumbled.
Here’s a picture of the St. Francis beach for your enjoyment. 🙂
Gorgeous pictures!!!