spirituality

Going to Church vs. Being the Church

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 14 Comments

As a kid, I went to church. Not much of an option there, really. My mother didn’t ask me if I felt like going, but told me we were going. After all, we’re Baptists. That’s what we do.

For most of my life, I talked about “going to church” as if church were a building or a place or an event.  In fact, until very recently. Then I noticed something in the New Testament. Nowhere in there does anyone talk about going to church or referring to church as a building or an organization. Churches in the New Testament always refer to a community of believers. A family.

If I go to church, then church is something I do once or twice a week (three or more if you’re a really good Baptist!) I will act and think differently when I’m in church than when I’m not.

But if I’m reading my Bible right and I am a part of the community called the Church, then I take the Church with me wherever I go. I am never not “in church.” That means that I act and think the same way all the time.

It amazed me that ever since I’ve picked up on this, I hear people all the time talk about Church as if it were a place or a building or a service. I hear myself talking about “going to church.” I guess it’s a part of the culture I grew up in. That many of us grew up in.

It’s not a sin to say “going to church.” But if we really believe what’s in God’s word, then maybe it’s time to shift our thinking and stop going to church and start being the church. Maybe we need to break out of the four walls of church buildings and start taking the Church, the koinonia or “the community”, everywhere we go.

A pastor I heard today said something like this: “What frustrates the world is not that we’re different, but that we’re not different enough.”  Maybe when the Church starts acting like the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Jesus, and not like brick and stone and mortar, they will start seeing the difference.

Another thing that irks me is the term “business meeting.” The church is not a business; it’s a family. But that is another topic for another blog someday.

Discovery

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I think I’ve established the fact over the course of the last year that I am one big music/movie/book nerd. I love me some good media. I think I could live at a bookstore like Borders, as long as I had a comfy hammock or sleeping back and a Chik-fil-a nearby.

I also love discovering new things. All the time at restaurants I am trying out new foods and new food combinations. One of my favorite things is to find a new author or artist that few people know about, one that hasn’t yet caught on or one that didn’t quite get there.

My latest musical find is a folk-duo group called The Story. They are (or were) Jonatha Brooke and Jennifer Kimball. Both have since gone on to more successful solo careers. I also really like The Sundays, a British group that probably very few have ever heard of.

There’s something grand about discovering new things. I think the life of faith is like that. Every morning are undiscovered new mercies and graces and fresh starts. Every moment is a potential do-over and a clean slate. There is no failure or even fiasco that God can’t turn into something glorious and victorious. Even you and me.

I am thankful for a God who doesn’t keep score or maintain a record of wrongs and broken promises and failed attemps at obedience. I’d be seriously screwed.

I’ve said it before many times, but I really love the fact that God looks at me and sees Jesus and is pleased. He not only loves me, but likes me, too! He’s not angry or disappointed or frustrated. He’s not about to give up on me (or you).

What would it be like if you and I could discover one new facet about the mercy, grace, and love of God every day? I don’t know how long it would take, but I’m sure it would be longer than the Oliver Stone’s director’s cut of JFK. I imagine it would take an eternity.

I guess it’s a really good thing we will have an eternity to find out, eh?

A Borrowed Prayer

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“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.
And what you want to give me is love,
unconditional, everlasting love.
Amen.” (Henri Nouwen).

Lord, when will we be able to let go of rule-keeping and sin-management and live in Your free and abundant grace? When will we stop condemning the sins in others that we don’t struggle with and admit that we ourselves are always in need of grace and forgiveness? When will we realize that the greatest power for change is not in picket signs or persuasive arguments or correct morality, but in full-on, unconditional, unlimited agape love?

Lord, You have told us that because of Jesus You are pleased with us. You have told us that You love us and even like us just as we are in all our unholy mess. You said You would keep loving us until all that is unlovely in us is gone and only what is lovely, what is pure, what is worthwhile, will remain. In other words, until all that is in us is You.

Help us to believe. Help us to remind each other of Your grace and be living examples of what that grace can do. Lord, I don’t think the world needs another person telling them what’s wrong with them and with the world. They don’t need to be told how they will bust hell wide open.

They need to be told that You can save them. They need to know it’s never too late to turn away from futile and empty lives and find all the beauty and joy and contentment and peace they could ever hold (and then some) in You. They need to know You will find them and rescue them and never let go. Ever.

Help me to live in a way that shows them how good and great You are. Help us all to live that way. May our lives be the prayers that you answer to bring the lost sheep home. Help us to be honest and broken and messed-up and crazy and willing to go wherever you lead. May we remember that the gospel is, after all, good news. Not more rules to follow or guidelines to live by, but the announcement that the debt has already been paid and the righteous requirements met and the victory won.

That’s the gospel. That’s good news. That’s grace.

The 10-Year Old’s Fantasy

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I think there’s some part of me that’s still 10-years old. That kid still believes that all his friends will always be his friends and their parents will never grow old or get sick and die.

He thinks that pets stay young and healthy forever and all kids are safe and secure with good parents and good homes. He thinks all his favorite places will always stay exactly the way he remembers them. He thinks that the world is exciting and never dangerous, and that life always has a happy ending and the good guys always win.

I know better. A friend of mine whose daughter I went to church and school with said goodbye to his wife for the last time this side of heaven today. I know I’ve said goodbye too many times already.

The world is not safe. Many kids don’t have good parents or good homes. In fact, they are probably in the most danger in their homes. Many children die from starvation and preventable diseases. Many lives do not have happy endings. And sometimes it seems the wrong side is winning.

But the 10-year old in me still thinks there is still beauty and joy around every corner. He thinks that ultimately good wins and all those who said their goodbyes will one day be able to say their hellos again. That lost doesn’t mean gone. It just means “see you later.” The grown-up me agrees.

There’s a lot about life I don’t understand. There’s a lot I wish I could fix– loved ones I wish I could bring back to their spouses, their children, and their parents. Even pets I could make come back.

I wish I could ensure that every child ever born a good home and a loving family and enough to eat. That every child gets to grow up in wonder at the world and grow old and get a happily ever after. I can’t.

But my God makes all things new. My God will restore the years that the locusts have taken, what disease and old age and tragedy have stolen. My God will give back a thousand times what we have lost. My God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. My God wins and we win, too.

That’s my true myth. My real-life fairy tale. My “too good to be true but also too good not to be” story. My happily ever after.

Grace: What a Year of Blogging Has Taught Me

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I think I’ve been blogging for about a year or so. It was some time last July that I started this crazy venture. Ok, so I don’t have millions or even thousands of loyal followers, but I have readers. Tens of readers.

The idea was never really about numbers. It was always about an outlet for me to express myself. Especially when it comes to the grace of God. Cause when it comes to grace, I am the #1 fan.

Grace walks in the back door when friends walk out the front door. Grace comes in when I’ve failed again after I promised I wouldn’t. Grace is a good thing.

Grace has led me safely thus far and grace will lead me home, or so says the old hymn. Grace really is amazing, isn’t it?

Grace says that God is strong and He loves me. Grace says that love won’t ever go away, no matter what I do. Grace is a good thing.

The more I try to describe or define it, the more I realize how hard a job that is. I can’t tell you what grace really is or how it works; I can only tell you that I desperately need it and I find it available at just the right moments.

 The older I get, the more I believe in my heart that there’s no such thing as good or bad Christians. There are only those who were lost and are now found. There are only those who deserved to die and got to live. There are only those who deserved hell and got Jesus instead.

In the end, none of us measures up. None of us is good enough. None of us always does what is right and avoids temptation and never fails. We all fall short. We all need grace.

That’s why I have no patience for impatient Christians and I am judgmental toward judgmental believers. I guess that makes me just like them. Darn. I really wanted to have the superior high ground for once. Oh well.

What draws people in the end is not perfect doctrine (which no one has), or mastery of morals, or a vast intellect, or the gift of eloquence. It’s grace. They see what grace has done for us and they want it.

May we all be trophies of grace each day and help people see that it’s okay to be broken and messed up and not have life figured out or everything together, because grace will lead us home.

 

 

 

The Way of the Heart . . . So Far

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I think I’ve established the fact that I am a supreme book nerd. I pretty much start salivating when I walk into Borders. For some reason, I don’t get quite the same effect at Barnes & Noble. Not sure why.

Anyway. I’ve been reading a book by one of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen, titled The Way of the Heart. The book is based on the teachings of the Desert Fathers of the 4th and 5th century. The idea is that in order to grow in your salvation you must “flee, be silent, and pray.”

Thus the three tenets of the book are solitude, silence, and prayer. We need each one to be able to tune out the distractions and tune into God’s heart for us.

Solitude keeps us from passively drifting along with society and its values and being conformed by the world around us. It takes us out of the world, so we can be in the world and not of it. We’ll never have time to get away to spend time with God unless we make time.

Silence is in response to what Nouwen calls the “wordy world” where we are constantly being bombarded with messages all day long. Silence means that the words we do speak have more meaning because they are fewer and more deliberately chosen. It means we avoid the pitfalls of words spoken flippantly or angrily or vainly. It allows us to hear God speaking to us.

Prayer is not so much finding out more about God and gaining knowledge of His will, but in immersing all of our being into God and being transformed by Him there. It is an acknowledged dependence on God in everything for everything always.

I am 79 pages in, and I am almost tempted to start the book over when I get finished. I can’t say that about too many books I’ve read, and I’ve read plenty. Remember me the uber book nerd?

I recommend anything by Henri Nouwen or Brennan Manning to speak directly to your world wherever you are. At least that’s what happens for me when I read either one of them.

I think I’ll close with a quote from Henri Nouwen:

“It is in solitude that compassionate solidarity grows. In solitude we realize that nothing is alien to us, that the roots of all conflict, war, injustice, cruelty, hatred, jealousy, and envy are deeply anchored in our own heart. In solitude our heart of stone can be turned into a heart of flesh, a rebellious heart into a contrite heart, and a closed heart into a heart that can open itself to all suffering people in a gesture of solidarity.”

A Beautiful Wedding

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I had the chance to be a part of a wedding of two of my favorite people in the whole world, John Engebretson and Michelle Stark. It was a beautiful wedding, more so because both are not only in love with each other, but with Jesus.

They chose as their first act as a married couple to take communion together. That was a sacred and sweet moment.

The pastor who officiated the ceremony had some really good words on what love in marriage looks like.

He said that the Greek had different words used for love. One is eros, which is basically glandular love. It’s something like “You meet my needs and make me feel good and satisfy my urges.” That’s not nearly enough to make a marriage work.

The second is philia, or brotherly love. He described it as an “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine, but I’ll stab you in the back if you stab me in mine” kind of love. That’s not enough, either.

Agape love, God’s love, is what a marriage needs. It’s the love that says “I love you regardless.” The love that is unconditional, unlimited, sacrificial and selfless.

Agape is what send Jesus to the cross for a people who had rebelled against His Father and rejected Him time and time again. Agape is God saying, “I will love you no matter what, whether you love me or not, and My love will never stop pursuing your heart.”

The wedding cake had a normal front, but the back half had lego pirates, because everything is better with pirates. Duh. That’s kind of a given. Who didn’t like Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Carribbean? Really.

I hope that if God blesses me with a woman who looks at me and my weirdness and still wants to be my wife, that I have a ceremony like that. One that honors God and honors marriage.

Society, culture, and the media have done everything to undermine marriage or to take the marriage vow lightly, or use it in vain. These days more than ever a man and a woman have to be intentional about living out a godly marriage that honors God and each other. One that demonstrates Christ’s love for His bride. One that really shows just how much God loves His people.

And yes, I really do still think God’s got someone for me. I also see that it’s no fairy tale happily ever after dream, but a lifelong swim against the current, but with hidden blessings and treasures that only God could have though of.

PS It’s good to be back blogging after a weekend in Ohio. Ohio’s good, but there’s no place like home.

Church Bulletins and Grace

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For some odd reason, I was reminded today of when I worked at a church back in the day and put together their bulletins. Apparently, some of the older members would get there early and grab a bulletin and comb it over looking for errors and mistakes.

Usually, I did good. Once though, I was supposed to put “in honor of” a certain beloved former pastor and I put “in memory of” instead. Oops. I can imagine him uttering the infamous line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail  “I’m not dead yet. . . . I feel happy!” (5 of you just got that last joke and the rest are thinking I’ve gone daft).

I think sometimes churchgoers are that way. They will comb your life and look for the least little mistakes to hold over you. A lot of us see God the same way, as the Supreme Micromanager, looking for what we’ve done wrong over the course of the past 24 hours to punish us.

I have very good news. God is not like that at all. I’m thinking of all the times I’ve screwed up in the last hour and that alone would probably fill up a couple of pages in God’s celestial diary.

No, when God looks at me, He sees what Jesus did for me and how He took all my mistakes, screw-ups, and sins and paid for them. God looks at me and sees Jesus’ perfection and is pleased.

The point is that none of us can look at anyone else’s mistakes with a judgmental heart because we only have to look in the mirror to see the guiltiest party. There’s a verse that says that if God counted our sins against us, who could stand? If God were as critical with us as we are with each other, no one would be alive.

So, just as God showed us mercy, we should probably show each other a little more mercy and grace. We should forgive because we always stand in need of forgiveness ourselves. And most of all, cut yourself a little slack. God knows you’re weak and stumbling and He loves you anyway. And if He can love you, why shoudn’t you?

For your added reading pleasure, here are a few of the more humorous bulletin bloopers. http://www.bible-reading.com/bulletin.html

Back to the Basics

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Some days, I wake up and I do good to remember my own name, much less any one else’s. For me in the early morning, I have to remember whem I’m getting dressed that pants go on first, then shoes. I know most of you take that for granted, but for me at 5:30 am, it’s not a given.

Some times you have to remind yourself of the basics. Sometimes when life gets hard or confusing or just plain weird. Most of these are not original with me, but I’ve picked them up over the years.

1) God is for you. God’s not up there, wherever “there” is, waiting to smite you or cast a lightning bolt at you or give you acne. He’s not. He’s on your side.

2) Don’t sweat the small stuff, and most of life is small stuff. Most of what you get so hung up on and stressed out over is small stuff. You probably won’t even remember most of those things that got you so worried today.

3) God never said He wouldn’t give you more than you yourself can handle, but He also said He Himself would take care of you. Quit trying to figure everything out and handle it all yourself. Be the child Jesus talks about and let God be your Father and get you through your trials and tests and other stuff.

4) Life is short. Choose family and friends and relationships over work and getting things done, because no one on his death bed ever laments about not having spent enough time at the office.

5) The only opinion of you that matters is what God thinks of you. The people you spend so much time wondering what they think of you are just as paranoid over what you think of them. Only God knows you completely. He made you. And He likes you.

6) You can’t do whatever you want or be whoever you want. I will never dunk a basketball on a regulation goal, no matter how much I really want to. You and I can’t be whatever we want to be, but we can be who God made us and meant for us to be.

That’s all I have. Other than maybe pants go first, then shoes. But like the song says, there are two things I know: 1) that God is good and 2) that He loves me.

No matter what else will happen to you, those two things will always be true. Always.

God’s One Question

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I can imagine that when I get to heaven, if God were to ask me one question, what that question would be.

It probably wouldn’t be any of these:

Did you hate all the right people and tell them I hated them, too? Did you do your best to make them feel excluded and left out?

Did you vote for the correct people who had all the right stances on the political and social issues?

Did you have the right millennial view of the tribulation and rapture?

I seriously doubt God would ask any of these. If He were to ask anything, it would be something like this:

Did you love the people I sent into your path, regardless of if their lifestyle and beliefs matched yours? Regardless of whether they were easy to love or if they loved you back?

Furthermore, did you demonstrate My love for them? Did you represent Me as a god who hates all the people you do or as a God who is bigger than you and your likes and dislikes?

In the end, what will truly matter is not how much money we made or how much we accomplished or even how correct all our doctrines were.

What will count in the end is how much and how well we loved. Not just the ones like us who voted like us and held our values and looked like us.

But God will look at how we loved our enemies and those who slandered and persecuted us. He will look at how we loved the outcasts and the marginalized and the downtrodden.

I know that I don’t have anywhere near the capacity to love like that. If I’m honest, I really don’t have the capacity to love at all.

But the good news as I was reminded today is that not only did Jesus die for me, but Jesus lives for me. Jesus lives in me and can love through me way better than I could ever love.

That’s what I’m praying for you and for me. That we will be willing to show and share the love of Jesus with all those God puts in our path. That we will show them how great God is and how wonderful Jesus is.