Friday, October 26, 2007

Relevant Church

So here is a question that needs some consideration: Is the church relevant?
Maybe we can interact about this a little but let me throw out my ramblings...

What I am asking is not is The Church relevant, but is a particular church relevant.
I believe that The Church, the one that Jesus established to be hope and life and grace and goodness and love is always relevant because it addresses the very core longings of humanity. We all long to belong somewhere, long to be loved, understood, connected. We want to know that we make a difference and that it matters whether we show up for something or not.
We want to know that we can mess up and be forgiven, that we can hurt and be held, that we can be on top of the world and have someone to celebrate with. (not much of a party if your on your own...)
We want to believe that things can be better, that this is not as good as it gets or all that there is.
As creative and as smart and ingenious as we humans are we long for a superior being, all our literature and movies point to this hero where ingenuity, creativity, power and courage is taken to the extreme.
Jesus Christ, the Messiah answers these longings. He offers acceptance, and belonging, hope and forgiveness, meaning and purpose, incredible love and kindness, grace and mercy! The Church he started is to mirror that - love and inclusion, care for the poor and forgiveness for those who messed up, belonging and purpose.

So what happened? Why is church seen as so irrelevant???
To answer that question we need to consider the indictment that is brought against churches everywhere. Let's consider some of the most popular ones:

The most popular is probably this on "Christians are all a bunch of ___________________!"
Yeah you guessed it HYPOCRITES! We claim to believe on thing but act contrary to it. Hmm... Or how about these:
  • "It's always all about the money..."
  • "Christians are so judgmental"
  • "Rules, Rules, Rules..."

SHARE SOME OF YOUR THOUGHTS!

1 comment:

Jacob Vanhorn said...

Here is my quick thought that is not nearly complete:

At a point in America's history Christians made a major push toward purity. By itself a good thing, but they attempted it by removing themselves from society at large. They lost their edge and created their own pop subculture that protects its own domain and seeks moral purity. Then, because they want to leave the house and venture into the world at some point, they began pushing others towards morality, but without the heart change. So now there are social reasons to be 'good' when around other church folk. Unfortunately, the heart change didn't quite take affect under a gospel of moralism. Just my two cents to get something started.

Thanks for being cool brother.