Category Archives: Community

Rejecting Church

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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.

Shane

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Last week a couple of people from my home community went with me to hear Shane Claiborne speak last week at Mosaic Church. They were unfamiliar with Shane, the Simple Way community, or much of the dialogue concerning intentional community and ordinary radical living. When we showed up to a packed out church we found quite a few friends there too (Jason, Ron and Lori, and Xolani).

As a side note, you’ve got to check out Shane’s rules about speaking at events. They’re very intentional, funny, and simple. I love it.

It was so refreshing to hear Shane remind us of things that Jessica and I have already wanted to be true of us but had grown fuzzy on. Hearing him talk only a few weeks removed from Kairos Strategy Lab where we spent time prayerfully putting a dream for a church on paper was excellent timing as well because much of what he said reiterated qualities we desired to be true of our church.

He spoke about the importance of the church, that the church was God’s creation not ours. It is through the church that God desires to communicate his love to the world. At the same time he compared the church to the ark from the story of Noah. It’s filled with crap but if you step outside of it you’re going to stink. He quoted another author and speaker (st. Augustine) saying “The church is a whore, but she’s my mother”. It may not be perfect but it’s Gods!

Shane reminded us that we’ve spent so much time trying to tell people about Jesus that it’s time we stopped using words. People are tired of us using words to tell them why they need Jesus and it’s about time that we stopped using words and started using our actions. Let’s show people that we love Jesus and that Jesus loves them huh?!

One courageous audience member came up to the microphone and said that that he and his wife read Shanes book a year ago and decided to move into lower income housing and to begin living in community with those in their neighborhood. That was a year ago. And then he said, “but it hasn’t happened. I guess what I’m trying to ask you is…umm…how do I become friends with my neighbor?” It was great and poignant and a perfect question! Shanes friend Chris answered the question. He talked about taking hot chocolate to some people on the corner waiting to buy some drugs. He talked about doing small things. About prayer. But mostly he said (and I love this) work on your marriage! Your marriage is your best tool for showing your neighbors Jesus. He said it doesn’t matter if you live in a ghetto or in suburbia, you’ve got to work on your marriage first.

There was so much more I could say. As Brandon (one of the friends who came with me) said, “I wish I could just listen for five minuets and then have a day to think about it.” There was all Shanes usual stuff about using your imagination, about being a radical, about redefining, about avoiding the dangers of Babylon, etc. You’ll have to read his books for that stuff.

Peace.