By Anonymous
The body is one, but made of many parts.
Most believers buy into this, and yet, we forget that bodies only function well when all the parts are connected and work together. I believe that this is the best argument for why I should choose into a church. I need to join my body part with the other parts so that we can unite the body under the headship of Christ.
As I connect with the body, I am able to see more clearly a picture of Christ. I see the amazing work he is doing through the hands, and how amazing the hand is, even when it is not producing or creating something. I see the feet and their purpose in the body and their rugged toughness that keeps the Church moving. If the hands and feet refuse to connect with the rest of the body, then the body becomes stale and unproductive.
I am part of the crowd that longs to experience God. I mean, truly encounter him. I believe that a church gathering allows for a believer to possibly experience God on three levels: the Word, the worship, and the fellowship of believers (we are created in his image, and he is with us always; so, hopefully, we can find him within ourselves).
I think that I left church because someone finally told me that I should expect something more out of church, and that lifeless attendance did not really impress God. I should not go to church just so others can see me at church. Nor should I go just because I always have gone to church. What do you do on Sundays? You go to church.
This revelation led me to become an angry “new type of Protestant.” I was even protesting the Protestant Church. I found myself saying to the Church, “Hey, you are not what you proclaim to be; therefore, I will not subject myself to this lie. I need something authentic.” I turned my back on the Bride and left the building called a church and the institutional effort called Church.
I did not give up on the reality of church, though. My wife and I began our own “church” with a few others. We tried to avoid things we hated: bulletins, announcements, offering plates, set speakers, timed worship, and so on. We never knew if there would be a meeting the next week, because we did not make announcements. Sometimes, we would just stare at each other, because no one really wanted to speak, and no one had been assigned. We placed our offering plate, which was a cookie jar, in the bathroom. When you wanted to give your tithe or offering, you would excuse yourself and go to the bathroom. When someone in the group was in need, we would get the cookie jar and try to meet the need with its contents.
This church fell apart, because thirty percent of those attending got full-time jobs in other churches, leading worship or being pastors.
Twenty-five percent got called into full-time missions internationally.
And fifteen percent got jobs in faith-based non-profit work in the States.
It is now five years later, and I am ready to consider joining a church again.
My wife has been at this point for about six months. As usual, she is the trendsetter in this relationship and I am fumbling around trying to catch up to her. I love that. Over the past year, we have committed ourselves to living in community. It was not necessarily the kind where people live in the same house; though, that did happen. I am stronger than ever in my faith right now, because of the challenges and standards this community has set before me and allowed me to set before them.
I realize that my frustration is not directed toward the concept of church or the institution of the historical Church. Rather, it is directed toward a shortcoming in the Bride of Christ that has been represented by various churches I have attended over the years. I confess that every shortcoming I see in the Bride is represented within my own heart and body:
-For every time I have been frustrated with weak or irrelevant teaching or preaching, there has been a time that I either gave a sermon that was weak or irrelevant, or that I was not teachable.
-For every time I have been frustrated with lifeless worship or lack of reverence for God, there has been a time where my own fabricated reverence was obvious.
-For every time I have been frustrated by a lack in fellowship or attempts at community within a church, there has been a time that I chose not to love my brother or sister, or would not allow them to love me.
-For every time I have been frustrated with the lack of movement toward a purpose beyond the church building itself, there has been a time that I was all too willing to sit on my couch and stare at a television screen and forget the needs of the world.
Church, to me, is a place of freedom that embraces and calls out all the spiritual gifts for all people. It is a community of accountability, a place to encounter God on multple levels, a body that is missional, and a place of intentional fellowship that does not segregate on basis of race, ethnicity, economic status, style, or sin issue. All are welcome. It would be nice if it was also a place of creative expression, had a focus on social justice, and emphasized community gathering beyond the church service.
You might say that if I find such a place to please invite you. Should we gather in a random place somewhere and give this a try? Would bureaucracy and petty disputes derail us? Would we be another embarrassing attempt to try something different?
We need to keep taking baby steps toward unity in the body. The question I am asking myself is, “Do I see the Church as God’s instrument to unify the body and advance his kingdom?”
My final thought is really more of a confession: I am turning my search so that it leads me to a church again. The body needs to unite.
I don’t want to just be a foot flopping down the sidewalk.
Stunningly good analysis. The Bride is so imperfect, so far short of the mark – and yet, still God’s chosen One (this is true individually as well as collectively) for advancing His Kingdom here on earth. Never has that truism about “what irritates you in someone else is usually something you’re guilty of yourself” been so real than when analyzing a church’s shortcomings. Love it that you did this here. God bless you (and me, because I’m in the same boat with you) in our search for a body of believers that puts our gifts to work to worship God and help others. If we want a good church, let’s go BE it. Blessings.
Just as you pointed out in your “For every time…” points, the key issue is an issue in each one of our individual hearts.
So as I see it, the key issue here is not whether we are a part of “church as we know it”, a church that would be recognized by most people in this day as a church. The key truth of this whole article really is simply “we in the Body of Christ need each other”. As someone who no longer “goes to church” in the traditional sense, this whole article equally applies to me and my heart. For my own heart, this whole article is talking about whether I should be off on my own, or whether I should be connected to other believers. But the ways in which I am connected to other believers would be seen by most people as not church. So we have to be careful about looking at those like me as being outside of church.
I find your article interesting, however I do feel that like many others you are simply seeing “the church” as that group of people within the building. When you take the time and see “the church” as every believer you come into contact with you start living church instead of just simply “going to church”. I don’t attend traditional church, I don’t attend a “home group” I exist as part of the church…Your “house church” didn’t work because it was still “a church” except the idea was to be “not a church” when you enter into dicipleship and friendship there need not be set time, or places, or agendas, you can simply exist as part of the church, and the bride of Jesus Christ.
I am not a member of a local church or home group (though I do host a bible study every week with a group of women) either. YET. But i know I need to be. I agree that we are the church wherever we go and we can find sustenance in all kinds of places these days that never require us to leave our home or computer. But I find it hard to study Scripture and get away from the fact that Jesus’ own custom was to go to temple each week and gather with others who were seeking God, that He established something called the church on Peter that it is not just the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our individual lives, that from Jesus’ death on, the disciples were in the habit of gathering together other believers for the purpose of worship, encouragement, equipping, teaching, prayer and ministry to others. Whether that is called church or not as it traditionally has been through the centuries is irrelevant to me. The point seems to be that we clearly need this regular, real and tangible community with other believers in order to be a healthy Bride.
Jodi,
I agree. That’s what I called “being connected” to other believers. That’s what the gathering, and being called out together really was about, just believers wanting to be together and do good stuff together because the Spirit, the Head, was calling the different Body parts to come together and be the Body. It can happen even with two people coming together, not that that is the entirety of a believers local family of believer-connections. It doesn’t have to be something that we build ourselves, in fact is shouldn’t be, Christ builds it. And I’d say the message in the fact that they met “daily” is not that it was “regular”, but that it was frequent, in fact even more frequent than “regular” church nowadays. When we think of church-as-we-know-it, “the gathering”-as-we-know-it, it conjurs up all kinds of restrictions on the Body of Christ that don’t need to, shouldn’t, be there.