I am really in a funk today, and I don't know why.....
Last night I spoke at the community Good Friday service at 1st Baptist Sycamore. It was an interesting evening. There is some movement within the pastors of this community towards bring the church together. They are calling it a "one church" movement. I like to call it the geographical church. They asked me to talk about prayer and the church. I gave a short (10 min or so) talk where I said that we need to get the intercessors together from all the churches, then the pastors need to get out of the way and let the intercessors just pray (radical concept).
I didn't fully understand how difficult some of this is going to be until I overheard some conversations. This was a community event, and there were about 10 pastors form the area there. I overheard a person say that they were worried that their pastor might be there and see them. They did not want to get in trouble for being in someone else's church. WHAT IT WRONG WITH US? Why are we so freaked out about stepping into others churches. I had a women come up to me and tell me that she liked my message. I felt that I was being rude because I did not formally introduce myself or get her name. So I put out my hand, introduced myself and asked for her name, apologizing for not asking sooner. She gave me her name, then got defensive, telling me that she went to such and such a church and that she was happy there. Is there something wrong with us when we can not be polite without people thinking we are trying to recruit them???? I just don't get it.
If we are ever going to get this idea of a geographical church, we are going to need to get over ourselves. Church is not about us and the small little expression of it that we attend. Church is about being the bride of Christ. And the entire church is part of his bride, not just the people we like. When we finally start to look at the church the way Christ looks at the church, perhaps we will begin to see the beauty of the church. The little details that make us all different make the entire body more beautiful.
I have truly come to the conclusion that marriage is a prophetic word on what the church is supposed to look like. Our spouses are complex. They are not robots where every single move they make is predictable. Instead, God has made their personalities incredibly detailed and complex. And those complexities are what many times we find beautiful in our spouses.
The same is true with the church. If the entire church was like the Vineyard, we would be pretty boring. But instead, the church is diverse, detailed, complex, and different. Where our building is, we are neighbored by a Methodist church, a Lutheran church and a Catholic church. Down the block we have a Bible, Baptist, Four Square, Congressional, Hispanic, and Greek Orthodox churchs. All of us have services at about the same time on Sundays. We are all worshiping the same God, we are all following after Jesus. Some of us are evangelical, some of us are denominational, some are orthodox, some are liberal. But at the heart of it, we are all trying to follow Christ. What if, instead of trying to find out who is better, we look at them and saw the bride, in all of her beauty? That's how I think Christ looks at it. Perhaps we need to be looking at it the same way. Because, the church is not about us and what it can do for us, it's about Jesus.
Last night I spoke at the community Good Friday service at 1st Baptist Sycamore. It was an interesting evening. There is some movement within the pastors of this community towards bring the church together. They are calling it a "one church" movement. I like to call it the geographical church. They asked me to talk about prayer and the church. I gave a short (10 min or so) talk where I said that we need to get the intercessors together from all the churches, then the pastors need to get out of the way and let the intercessors just pray (radical concept).
I didn't fully understand how difficult some of this is going to be until I overheard some conversations. This was a community event, and there were about 10 pastors form the area there. I overheard a person say that they were worried that their pastor might be there and see them. They did not want to get in trouble for being in someone else's church. WHAT IT WRONG WITH US? Why are we so freaked out about stepping into others churches. I had a women come up to me and tell me that she liked my message. I felt that I was being rude because I did not formally introduce myself or get her name. So I put out my hand, introduced myself and asked for her name, apologizing for not asking sooner. She gave me her name, then got defensive, telling me that she went to such and such a church and that she was happy there. Is there something wrong with us when we can not be polite without people thinking we are trying to recruit them???? I just don't get it.
If we are ever going to get this idea of a geographical church, we are going to need to get over ourselves. Church is not about us and the small little expression of it that we attend. Church is about being the bride of Christ. And the entire church is part of his bride, not just the people we like. When we finally start to look at the church the way Christ looks at the church, perhaps we will begin to see the beauty of the church. The little details that make us all different make the entire body more beautiful.
I have truly come to the conclusion that marriage is a prophetic word on what the church is supposed to look like. Our spouses are complex. They are not robots where every single move they make is predictable. Instead, God has made their personalities incredibly detailed and complex. And those complexities are what many times we find beautiful in our spouses.
The same is true with the church. If the entire church was like the Vineyard, we would be pretty boring. But instead, the church is diverse, detailed, complex, and different. Where our building is, we are neighbored by a Methodist church, a Lutheran church and a Catholic church. Down the block we have a Bible, Baptist, Four Square, Congressional, Hispanic, and Greek Orthodox churchs. All of us have services at about the same time on Sundays. We are all worshiping the same God, we are all following after Jesus. Some of us are evangelical, some of us are denominational, some are orthodox, some are liberal. But at the heart of it, we are all trying to follow Christ. What if, instead of trying to find out who is better, we look at them and saw the bride, in all of her beauty? That's how I think Christ looks at it. Perhaps we need to be looking at it the same way. Because, the church is not about us and what it can do for us, it's about Jesus.
