In my last post Sarah D. Said

Sometimes when I try to really stop and think about what we’re actually supposed to be about as Christ followers it boggles my mind. I literally don’t know what to do with how very different I’m afraid it is from what we have been doing. At this point it’s too big for my brain but I keep coming back to it and maybe one of these times I will have some idea of what to do. Christopher has me reading a book called “Revolution in World Missions” by K.P. Yohannan that has me going even further down the rabbit hole of realizing we’ve got it wrong. What to do?!

I’m not wanting to try to answer any of Sarah’s thoughts or questions, but I thought it was an interesting comment and figured that I’d write my thoughts about it.

What are we to do about the seemingly large dichotomy between what Christ-Followers are supposed to look like and what churches seem to produce. And if we realize that we seem to have gotten thing wrong, what are we supposed to do about it?

The church will never look like it is supposed to really because people are imperfect and the church is filled with imperfect people. Even the early church, which we have tried so hard to emulate, was pretty darn screwed up. The main problem isn’t that the church doesn’t look like it’s supposed to, the problem is that the intentions and purposes of the church often are so far off the priority that we read about in the Bible. If we aren’t even shooting in the right direction, how are we supposed to look even close to the God that we’re following? Luckily we have a gracious God right?
My biggest beef isn’t with the churches that have missed the point (I’m pretty sure Renovatus has missed the point in some way and I hope and pray that if/when we find out what it is we’ll have the humility and faith to make that change) my biggest beef is with the people who know better and choose to reject the church altogether. You know who you are. You’re the ones who say the church is supposed to look like this or that and you get pissed because the church is so far from what you think it should be (which is probably right) but instead of being an agent of change you use that as an excuse to stop being connected to a faith community. You think that because you’ve got a group of friends you hang out with who feel the same way that you don’t need the church. How is the church ever to change if all the people with a bigger vision just quit it?
So what should we do? We’ve got to learn to be missional in our own personal lives. We can’t expect the church to do things that we aren’t willing to do. Start a home community and invite your friends from work. Start taking food to a homeless dude in downtown. Live in intentional community with other people. Think creatively and purposefully. How can we be missional in the current place that we live, that’s the big question.

This post wasn’t everything I hoped it would be…but I just got my balls snipped alright?! Give me a flippin’ break!