The Church, What is it?

If you are asking “what is the church?” then you aren’t part of one correctly.

When I was in college a large group in the evangelical community asked, “what is the church?” The church for many was irrelevant. The standard pastor speaking for 45 minutes, midweek bible study, and coffee hour just didn’t feel right. Just in time to ride those feelings the intellectualism of postmodern deconstructionism arrived.

A deconstruction ensued, but without a coinciding ‘reconstruction’. Churches attempted to go back to the same model as the original churches. These churches, at least in many pastors’ minds, were characterized by a more familial setting with less emphases on a lead pastor and more emphases on small groups and discussion based growth. Typically, these were called the ‘emerging churches’

In my view it flopped into nothing more than adjusting the structure to some ‘new’ format of Sunday morning and not anything significant in the church’s DNA. As one critic asked, “If the church is emerging now, where has it been and what is it emerging from?”

It was clear that THE church was not solely the 1.5-hour Sunday morning service. But then, what was it? Changing this to Saturday night, adding pastors for a speaking team, and adding in after service food changed nothing but the structure. So, what is church?

Here is the snarky answer: If you must ask, you aren’t part of one. If you are part of one, it is obvious, like breathing air. The global collective of believers is the gateway for heaven to earth in all aspects that heaven is better and greater than earth.

Church is when your car breaks down and Jim comes over to fix it because he is called by Christ. Church is when you take meals to the new mom because you are following the call. Church is when you pay for someone else’s Covenant eyes subscription and meet with them every week on the 7 Pillars to combat porn because you love the Lord with all your heart. Church is when you pray to bless your boss who wrecked your career because that is obedience to God. Church is when you spend 100k to add rooms to your house so you can adopt because it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Church is when you show up on Sunday morning to confess, worship, and bring offerings to the Lord as a gathering of people following the same view in an organized format.

Church is every bit of heaven we as a group bring to earth – but it is also the structure we put in place to ensure we don’t forget. Church is far less an issue of the structure and far more an issue of our own collective hearts living sacrificially as though the Lord is returning tomorrow.

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The Secular and Sacred

There are two great lies the church hands out freely. We are to love ourselves first and there is a separation between secular and sacred. The first is more widely held and defended. When I politely suggest that loving yourself first is not scriptural it is Christians who respond viscously. Those who do not profess Christ easily accept it. Christians are supposed to love others more than themselves. That is Christ like, is it not?

More subtly is the separation of the secular and the sacred. The separation is not taught as much as implied. Sermons, books, conversations, bible studies, and tweets imply that the unseen spiritual world is of more importance. Church ministry, worship songs, winning souls for Christ, reading the Bible all have value. Everything else is just pointless filler.

If you are working a secular job, it is good to tithe and not do wrong things in front of your coworkers and invite them to church. But your real life is the spiritual things you do around your job. You have the unfortunate position of only getting in a few hours of spiritual work. Blessed be the church ministries that get to do spiritual work 40 hours a week.

Christ cares for conduct of all people, everywhere, in every action. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it well unto the Lord. If this means taking extra time to clean the runners in your sliding door unto the Lord, then do it well. If it means leaving that task undone to respond to a friend on Facebook, then do so to the Lord.

The separation degrades most of our life from diligent stewardship of God’s gifts into pointless tasks. Those not in full time ministry feel lost and without purpose. It strips lives of opportunities to serve and glorify God. Worship moves from all people, all places, everywhere to fifteen minutes on Sunday morning and listening to Phil Wickham in the car.

Our crowns are created and shined on earth. They are shown in heaven. The next several posts I will be covering how to change our thinking to undo the separation of secular and sacred.

Doubt, and Faith

I doubt God. I have difficulty, very often, believing in his goodness. Although I know all of the theological answers, the sin in the world around me forces me to ask, why? What purpose? The sin that affects my heart causes me to ask, why? Where are you?
I don’t see him in events surrounding sin, and the ripple affect that it has on my life. MY LIFE. I have a hole in my heart from hurt and pain. I want it filled. I want it answered. Rather than see answers, I see more pain. I am too focused on that current pain to look forward to what God has. I want my answer now, I say as a true instant gratification American. Justice, now.
I want to see God. I want to see him act and change the world around me. Not just tell me in a book it will happen some day.
So I turn to people. They are here, they are present. But then, the hurt in my heart doesn’t just ask for a shoulder to lean on, or someone to walk with. It demands to be filled, and to have an answer. So rather than relate with another I find myself taking from them. Their energy, their emotional stability, just to satisfy my need. This obviously causes problems.
I blame myself for these problems. But I am God’s creation, and he has supposedly guided my life? So I ask why, and I do, as I have always done, the same thing to him as I do to everyone else. I demand an answer and I demand a healing to my soul. I don’t relate, I don’t listen. I don’t just tell him and watch.
Watching. Listening. Waiting. I do not do that very well. So I doubt. I don’t see God as present. He must be aloof. Watching from above. Waiting to see if I ask enough. Then, then he will come to me in a voice. Then I read a book, have a realization that I am not being grateful, so I begin thanking God for what I have. Of course, it wasn’t God who taught me that, I read it in a book. So I keep waiting for him to speak.
Of course, he doesn’t.
I get hurt.
I want healing.
The cycle continues.
My arguments get more and more idiotic. I remember telling a friend once, “The worst part about my argument with God, is that right now, I think I am winning”. Never a good place to be.
I even admit and often joke that it is hard to tell whether what I am feeling is something I ate, or the voice of God. I recently was at a bible study, left early because I get up for work early, but then went back for the prayer portion. When asked why I was back I said, “Well, I think that God told me to come back. That or I just wanted more attention. I really can’t tell which”
I don’t know what did it. What changed my thought. But I suddenly caught myself in this bitter trap of disrespect and ungratefulness. So I finally began to thank God for things. Then I had an emotionally devastating event occur. I called out to God. But for some unexplainable reason, it was different this time. It finally clicked, the connection between God and my world. I asked God, “Please refine me and purify me, guide me in your paths by any means necessary, people, nature, dogs” I was running, and passed a peacock. It was beautiful.
In asking this way, I am living in faith that God will answer. And I am removing from myself the excuse of, “that was just a coincidence” God can work through anything. I must be thankful to him for all good things, for his hand is in all things we do that are good, for that is part of his image.
In reality, I do know where this clarity came from. It was a gift, from God. And that is something that I do not doubt.