Church

This is a difficult topic for me right now. I just read a book that was ironically recommended by a pastor friend. The book comes from a movement of reformers that are a little over 20 years old. They believe that the modern popular expression of church is flawed at the root and should therefore be done away with in favor of something strictly Biblically based. It goes by different names depending on the flavor of the group. I've heard the arguments before for most of it, but some of this book's arguments are really resonating with me and I'm not sure how that will play out.

I've had a problem with the dry knowledge-based church style. It is dead and changes very little of very few people. I've been involved in charismatic-tilted church and seen the personality cults, the blind devotion to 'signs & wonders' and even those who move across the country repeatedly, chasing the latest 'move'. I've been in the growth-based seeker-church and seen the blatant marketing principles applied and worked on people as if God were a Ad Exec. I'm sorry, when textbook marketing gets butts in your seats, you can't call that God.

I've even been involved in home churches that were cloisters of ungrounded, disenfranchized people who just thought they could do it as well as anyone else...who needs the regular stuff, we'll make our OWN church. And the converse where they think all who meet in buildings are apostate servants of the antichrist.

I've also been involved in radical dregs of the earth ministry church that goes in deep and helps people who couldn't even begin to set foot in traditional churches. And there I've seen the hurt create cliquishness and let's just face it, damaged people do damage. When your whole church is made up of people with serious issues, those issues will play out.

Not that all of these things were all bad. I've seen people's lives changed. I've seen transformations and real moves of God. But I tend to think these things are in spite of and not because of the church structure. Afterall, we're all flawed people. Can we really expect our organizations to not be flawed? This is the conclusion I'd come to and lived under for years.

But then, somewhere deep inside me, I've never been able to shake this small voice, almost too hard to hear, calling out for something more. Longing for a group to share my life with...not a life group or some other forced approximation, but a real connection. A community to live into and to raise my child in. A group like Bunyan's troop making their way along the road in the footsteps of Christian. A group where strong faith carries weaker, where helpfulness arises, where there is a palpable realness of spiritual unity. How do I know this exists?

It's in the New Testament. It's in Bunyan's work. I've even experienced it myself...no really, I have. Not for long, but there was a time and a group, several of whom I am still deeply connected to. For a time, we were a real community. Flawed, yes. But there was a real unity that is beyond human ability. It wasn't just a Sunday thing, or a semester study group. These people were brothers and sisters and we shared everything! Not like some hippie commune, but our lives were a part of each other entirely. Our worship, our problems, our challenges, sicknesses, jobs, marriages, social circles, were all intertwined in this group. It was Holy.

But then it ended. Perhaps we tried too hard. Perhaps we tried to do too much. Perhaps we fell victim to the insidious attacks of an enemy that would do anything to bring down that kind of unity. Honestly, I don't care what happened. I don't want that group back. It ended for good reason. But I do want that reality back. THAT I can't let go of. I wanted to spend my life in that.

Every church before or sense has been ok for a time, and then turns miserable. Something just eats it up. The common denominator here is me. So I have tried to change myself and as hard as it has been, as unnatural as it has been, I have been making progress. But then on the heels of a visible, palpable "issue" at my church, there comes this book. And as critically as I have taken it, as much as I have checked references and confirmed his Greek and sniped his logical fallacies, there is a piercing dart of truth in it that echoes across all of what has been good in church in my life.

I feel like Lucy who has just seen Aslan go left when Peter (human authority) and the group (the majority) go right, saying she is a silly little girl. If I don't run after Him, will it be on my head? I know what I saw! I know what I want! Is this the path to it?

My heart beats at my ribs screaming, "YES, YES, YES, for the love of God THIS is it!" But I distrust me heart. It is easily enticed away by sirens who echo what it wants to hear. I have to go down this path, but I will go slowly. God forgive me for it. I want to abandon myself to the current that I know is true, but must test, must know it is the right stream first.

Please God, pull my foot from under me and I will go headlong n spite of myself!