Searching for Meaning and Purpose...

As I've written about the church, many (including me!) would be tempted to say- "See, those people are the problem, can't we fix them?" instead of starting where it needs to, with us.  Whenever we talk about community, it has to start with ourselves. So, who do you think you are?  Valid and very important question, right?  Mark Driscoll covers that in depth in his new book, "Who Do You Think You Are?" and we're going to be talking about it in depth the next several days, because until we have our identity, purpose, and place down telling others to fix themselves is failing in our mission and mandate from Jesus (who famously told us to "yank the plank" before trying to dig out specks in others' eyes). To start, we have to answer the question for ourselves.  I think I'm a person who's saved by grace through faith who's following Jesus.  Does that mean I'm right?  No.  I think so, but it might not be true.  So let's put...

I'm going to continue some of my musings on the Kingdom of God and community. In a nutshell, you'd say we're simply dissecting the church and the way it ought to be. Community inside the church is far different than most places, in part because we should be such a diverse group that normal categorizing fails (or it should, as Martin Luther King famously noted- Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week)!  There should be all varieties of people- race, socio-economic status, education levels, work type, age, gender- in the church.  It should be an eclectic mix of people who come together not because we like being together, but because we are each subservient to Jesus Christ and drawn together because of Him.  It's not about the music (rock, organ, chant, hymns, orchestra, a cappella, Psalms, or otherwise), the charisma of the preacher (because let's admit it: we like hearing preacher's who engage us and often choose our church based on that),...

Community.  Church.  Identity.  Who are we as individuals coupled with the question of who we are together.  It's tough, because it seems like there are a million different answers to the simple question, "Who do you think you are?"  Particularly difficult is parsing who we are in this crazy thing called the church.  The following is taken from a video (embedded below) from the Rend Collective Experiment (and written out below if you're a word person instead of an aural person): Is there anything quite like a campfire?  The community that’s built there by people sharing their stories and singing their songs is truly special and so intimate.  It’s like being 10 years of age again and sharing all your secrets with your best friend.  And that openness and vulnerability is exactly what we should see in the greatest community on earth, the Church.  There are no walls out here and there should be no walls of defense, towards god or eac...

As far as books about the church go, this is one that ought to be required reading! I thoroughly believe their thesis, that to effectively speak into culture (and to maintain some kind of relevance and authority) the church must become a heterogeneous body composed of every ethnicity, not the homogenous body it currently is. This is the image of heaven, when people from “every tribe, tongue and nation” will be joined together as one, being the body of Christ and enjoying Him forever. As background, I work at a church that has very little (like two to four people out of 200) diversity. On an average Sunday in our little town, we have one to three Hispanic individuals, one Asian, and possibly one other race represented. Are there a couple of Anglo's who add diversity to our congregation because of their immigration? Yeah. Do we do a lot of things to allow us to build bridges (how many churches that are 90+% white and English speaking invite Mexican pastors who speak very litt...

After taking a couple days to look at fatherlessness (which is about a lack of community) I wanted to come back to this discussion of community as the church. When we talk about church, we most likely mean the building our congregation worships in. I know when my kids talk about "going to church," it means driving over to the church building proper. However, the conception the early believers had was far different! They didn't have a building, they didn't have paid staff, they didn't have respect or tax exempt status, and yet that was when everything was "on fire" (yes, I did just use that pun, try not to kill me for it!) as the Spirit had just come down and they were " adding to their number daily ." What made the church grow then versus now? Was it better cultural relevancy? Was it their social justice pursuits in aiding those " who had need "? Was it passionate people? Was it great coffee? Or is there something we overloo...

So after hitting a bit on some of the critiques of the church (hypocritical and anti-gay in case you missed it, look back at Part 1 ), we're back with three more: too political, irrelevant, and judgmental. We'll start with the easy one, "too political." This comes from many who are fighting the "culture war" and who have been part of either the moral majority or any other Christian political cause. As people who believe in Christ, we do, honestly and with some humility stated here, know the best possible way. I mean that (the honestly and with some humility part too!). The way of Christ is the best of all possible ways and is the fulfillment of creation. I mean, every single thing revolves around the person of Christ (like the sun in our solar system), was made in and for the person of Christ, and receives its fulfillment in the person of Christ. Therefore, we receive our fulfillment (as does the fullness of Scripture) only in the person of Christ: r...

Have you ever heard people make the statement, "Well, I just have problems with God..."? That statement is typically followed by a critique of the church or of Christianity in general. Some of the critiques are very real, others are lame, some illogical and some plain mean. But, I'll endeavor to show how some of those critiques play out and explain the how's and why's so you'll be equipped to deal with them in this and the next few posts. First is the biggest complaint against the church and Christianity: hypocrisy. How often have you heard someone say, "I don't go to church because of all the hypocrites."? I hear it regularly and am SO tempted to answer in a very mean-spirited way by saying, "Well come anyways, we could always use one more." But, that's just not nice and is plain mean. However, there are reasons and there are answers. The reason is simple: people look in the doors of the church and see people they know acti...