Friday, January 2, 2015

The church exists to ...

Ah, the fresh breath of a new year. This morning I steal unabashedly from a writer named John Meunier, a part-time local pastor in Indiana who writes a blog named "An arrow through the air."

His question is, "How does the church make the world better?"

He quotes Patrick Lencioni in his book, the Advantage, as writing that an organization has to have a purpose that is ultimately about making the world a better place.

My question, then, is would the world be different if your church didn't exist? How does it, then, make the world different, change the world, help the world.

Meaner suggests that the church exists to "destroy the works of the devil." I'm not exactly sure what that means, so I will leave that one alone.

And ... "welcome every person into a living and growing relationship with Jesus Christ." On this one, I agree, but I would need specifics for those who have no idea how to have a living and growing relationship with someone they can't see.

And ... "help you become the person God created you to be." Oh, my yes. But how does the church do this?

And ... "create a colony of heaven on earth." I haven't found that colony just yet, though I spend an enormous amount of time seeking.

I spent time recently talking with a wise younger man about church, and he pointed out to me that the model we've been living in since, well, forever doesn't work any more. Younger folks don't know the church language, and when we pile it on them, they run like mice from a house fire (or some such analogy).

I finished reading last night Adam Hamilton's look at scriptures through the looking glass of modern scholarship, "Making sense of the Bible," and I must say it opened my eyes a bit in some instances. I read half of "The Bible Tells Me So," by Peter Enns in an extended stay over coffee in Barnes and Noble yesterday, and he too picks and pops the material we hold sacred. Both are engaging looks at who wrote the scriptures and how we can wrestle with them and it's okay.

My point is this: Before we must answer the question about what the church exists to do, we must define what the church is, and I fear we're still lost in structure and in pageantry and in buildings and even in tradition.

The church exists, it seems to me, to have its people build relationship with each other and with this man Jesus, who came to die for us. If we can't say that, help people understand that, point ourselves toward that, we're treading water in a very deep sea.

The church, its people, exists as an avenue to Jesus, and then an avenue to do what Jesus said to do: feed, clothe, help, heal.

Nothing more, or less. Styles of worship are worth discussion. Opinions on meaning of scripture, worthy of debate. Moral discussions worth, uh, loads of coffee.

But ultimately, the church is God's hands and feet. It exists to change the world, by loving the world into submission.

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