Church: Who we are called to be

Lately I’ve been thinking about the whole idea of church, as you can tell because the last four entries have been about that. One of the key things one needs to do in attempting to change is first deconstruct what they are coming from then work on constructing something that learns from its history. The last four entries were somewhat of a deconstruction process of my ideal of the church that I saw, but simply pointing out errors and walking away isn’t something can stop at. I can’t be content whining about the present without planning something new for the future. What you read before was my struggles over the last three or four years compressed into four entries. It obviously could be expanded on and each point could be explained but then I would be writing a book (which I intend to do one day), so what you read is an idea of where I coming from and how I got to where I am now.

The way we think of church, even in our minds is completely screwed up. Think about this concept for one second. “I am going to church.” What is wrong with that statement? Or how about this one; “church sucked today.” All these comments prove outright that church has become something that we attend on a weekly basis. Church is something that we go to. All through Scripture it is quite clear to me that church isn’t something that people went to but instead all the Christians were the church. When they all came together they didn’t come together for church, they came together as the Church.

See how the whole idea of going to church once a week completely messes up what Church was meant to be. Trust me, because the word means something different it will take a long time for us to come back to what it is supposed to mean. One might get depressed because that means that the Church hasn’t really been around for the last 1800 years, but then again I wouldn’t even go there. The Church has always existed. All believers are the Church. The Church as we know it is just tangled up in weekly services, and then they call those services the church. I’m not sure why those services inherited the name ‘church’ but I do know that it messes up a lot of our ideas of what the Church is supposed to be.

This is to encourage you in understanding that even though your ‘church’ may suck the Church doesn’t. The Church is still alive and vibrant, full of life and serving and loving people. The Church can consist in or outside of the walls of the church. The Church has never been restricted by a once a week service instead the Church is enhanced and it grows because of that service. Numbers on Sunday morning do not mean necessarily number of the Church. The only thing that kept me attending church was when I understood that church is the gather of the Church. When that can be understood then it doesn’t really matter if church is good or bad or boring what matters is that you are surrounded by the rest of the Church.

This is an old concept that many are trying to unleash and understand in their local cultures. It’s something that is being looked down upon by many and supported by many. I don’t expect things to change overnight, because that would be naïve, but I do expect things to change. It starts with us. It starts with this knowledge and then moving forward to do something about it. So when you start getting all down because your church ‘sucks.’ Remember YOU ARE THE CHURCH and that doesn’t suck.