Tagged by! JEFF
Rules:
1. Post to your blog on the subject “A Manifesto for Church”, outlining your thoughts on what an ideal church would/should be like. Posts can be as detailed or as short as you like.
2. Include a copy of these rules.
4. Put a link to your post in the comments to this post.
5. Tag at least 4 other people.
6. What happened to rule 3?
3. Ah, here it is.
tagging;
annnd…
Okay, here it goes.
I’m not sure I can make an outline per say, but I can share some desires regarding church that I know I have.
When I first became a Christian, I had the nerve to do so “on one condition!” I said to the Lord of the universe; “Don’t ask me to go to church!”(This seems so funny to me now)
That was fine for about 2 years, and then….I went to church, armour on, sword in hand, ready for a fight!
I had issues and negative expectations of church long before I got there.
History had proven it to be oppressive at best (in my estimation) and I was fearful of becoming conformed to believe rather than to discover what is real.
While I realize my perspective was a tad unbalanced thank youJ I also recognize that in some ways, I simply wanted to avoid some very real pitfalls to institutionalized spirituality.
After years of embarrassing myself at home-group meetings through a series of passionate displays of frustration and confusion about church, I’ve come to accept that while my outbursts didn’t help, I wasn’t far off in my desire to see the body of Christ actually BE what it advertises itself to be.
The alternative being, and just as delightful; let’s not pretend we’ve arrived at our destination as a people but instead, lets be honest and make the journey together. This is what ‘family’ looks like. Not perfect, and embracing that truth. We become who He made us to be through surrender, not striving.
I found trying to grow within the structure of an organization a lot like attempting to be creative using a very limited template. In many ways, this template didn’t allow for the bigness of God in my life, which I passionately believed in and needed. I was completely unable to adapt to it. So I tried installing ‘widgets’ to accommodate J
They didn’t work well though. I kept getting ‘Error’ messages. ‘Wrong Format’ or,
“that won’t work here’ (Insert more passionate displays of frustration and confusion here…)
What ended up happening is I became one more ‘fringe’ member of the body. This was not good. This was not God.
Being a part of His family with a job to do, designed by Him, custom fit for who I am; this is what I believe in for each of us, and this is what He promises us in scripture, and what I’ve been looking for since I surrendered to ‘going to church’.
The fact that it’s been so difficult to find is becoming less of an issue for me. I have to embrace the bigness of God again and see this journey as a good thing He’s doing. His church is a mystery.
As frustrated as I’ve been I see no way out other than to wait for Him to teach me what it means to be His family, and how to love an imperfect, funny-looking, sometimes scary, competitive people. People like me.
Sometimes he sends me little bits of wisdom through people who have been on this journey a lot longer than I.
There’s an amazing lecture given by Eugene Peterson (mp3 is free to download)
entitled; ‘What Are Pastors Good For?’ where Eugene shares his journey in discovering a love for the church as she is, rather than who she proclaims to be. I found it ultra encouraging. (You need iTunes to listen)
Bottom line is, I just want it to be real.
