I know quite a few people who love Jesus but hate the church. It’s a fairly common theme ’round here to be a Christian but to not “go” to any church. And I think that those people often have a valid point.

The way that we do church today is not what God intended.

The church is screwed up and has completely missed the point.

The church is filled with hypocrites and people who simply want to project a certain image but in reality make no effort to live and act like Jesus.

Why do we have to meet on Sundays? Why do we have to sing? Why do we have to sit and listen to one orator telling us what God says? Why does any of it have to be some big official corporate gathering?

Wouldn’t Jesus be more pleased if we stopped cloistering ourselves on Sunday mornings telling him how awesome he is and instead use that time and effort to show people with our actions how awesome he is?

I don’t need the church to practice my faith. My faith is between God and I.

While these are not direct quotes, they are summary statements from different conversations I’ve had with friends about the church. I don’t want to spend time trying to refute all of those statements, and in reality I think that some of those might be right on and accurate. We could spend some time in the Scripture reading about how the church was God’s idea not mans, about what some of the basic ideas God desired to be true of the church, and what the early church looked like (both good and bad), but I don’t think that would really answer the question that’s being asked and I’m not sure it’s my friends lack of Bible study that I’m questioning. Rather, I am growing quite dissatisfied with the alternative to the church that most of these people present. By rejecting the church “as it is”, my expectation would be to find an example of the church “as it should be”. Instead it seems like I find many people who have become somewhat stagnant in their faith or at the very least apathetic in their efforts to practice it. They don’t like what they see in church but they don’t seem to have found a healthy (spiritually enriching) replacement for it. Maybe they’ve found some outlets to serve people, but it has become quite unconnected with the message of Jesus.

I’m going to just stop right here because I don’t want to get too critical. That’s not my point.

My point is this: if you’re dissatisfied with the church as it is why don’t we work together to search the Scriptures, to look to Jesus, to listen to his Spirit and re imagine church as it should be. Why don’t we begin re imagining an alternative to the two extremes that we are tempted to polarize to of rejecting the church or trying to change the church. I would suggest that church planting is the answer. In church planting we are able to dream new dreams and receive new visions for a different kind of church without having to reject church as we currently experience it and without wasting away within a church system that may not be created for you. The challenge is that it must start with personal transformation before anything else. God is not fully honored when we dream new dreams out of anger and frustration, but what if that anger and frustration was transformed by the Spirit of God into purpose, intentionality, creativity, and adventure.

What if we partner with the church of today to create a new church expression for tomorrow. Maybe that church expression could borrow from some of those critical quotes previously mentioned. But instead of being critiques of the church as it is, it could be transformed into a vision for the church that could be. Here’s my positive spin of the above statements:

I see value things in the Bible that the previous generation did not. What would it look like to be a part of a church that carried some of those values?

The church is screwed up and has completely missed the point…thank you Jesus for grace! I would like to start a new church that invites people into a messy community of imperfection.

The church is filled with hypocrites and people who simply want to project a certain image but in reality make no effort to live and act like Jesus…you’re damn right we’re hypocrites and I’m proud to be honest about my hypocrisy as I invite others to find forgiveness for their screwups.

What would church look like if we did things differently? Can Bible study happen without a preacher? Then how? Can mobilization to change the world happen without a central gathering? Then how? What does church look like with new purposeful practices replacing some of the old?

How do we reinterpret the idea of worship to include more of life?

“I don’t need the church to practice my faith. My faith is between God and I.” I’m sorry, I’ve got no positive spin on this one. I consider this a straight up fallacy that destroys people…but that’s just my opinion.