In an attempt to help us remember the beauty of the Bride of Christ, I am sharing a three-part series over the next few days entitled, “What I love about…” focusing on the raw beauty of Jesus, His people, and His leaders.
I have already written on what I love about Jesus, here I will explain what I love about the church.
Today, we know the church primarily as a group of people who meet in a particular building. In fact, for many, the church is the building. Maintaining the premises and establishing rules of conduct for those who want to be a part of making decisions about what goes on within the building seems to be most important.
Even if we see the church as more than four walls and a roof, we often view the church in a similar way we view the ladies garden club, or the men’s softball team. It’s a special group of people with a unique purpose in life and if you want to be a part of the group, you must abide by certain rules, or standards.
The problem with this view of the church is that it’s incomplete, at best. If not downright unbiblical.
As long as we can relegate the church to a building or a group of people who believe certain things and abide by certain guidelines, the church will always be disposable to us. There is nothing intrinsically eternal about a church established around man-made material or beliefs.
Am I suggesting a statement of doctrine and beliefs is “man-made”? That to come together because people agree on certain truths is a humanly devised set-up and not what God intended? Does what we believe not matter?
Well, basically.
We don’t see Paul exhorting Titus and Timothy to outline a statement of beliefs and practices. It doesn’t seem to be a big deal to God that we have our ideas of what is important to Him written down paper. At the same time, we see Paul constantly reminding them of the doctrines we must hold on to.
If anyone teaches you other doctrine and does not agree with the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and does not promote godliness, he understands nothing. (1 Tim. 6:3)
Doctrine matters, but not because we’re coming together around a set of ideas. It matters because the true doctrine of Jesus Christ leads us to the person of Jesus Christ. And He is the foundation of the church, (Eph. 2:20, 1 Co. 3:11) the only Way through which to be reconciled with the Father (John 14:6, Ro. 5:11).
Church is about Jesus. It is about God’s rescue plan for creation. People who are being transformed from the inside out because of what Christ has done on the Cross—they make up the church. We come together around someOne. What we believe matters to the extent that it leads us to know (experientially) God Himself.
What I love about the church is that is the compounded presence of God.
What is the church? It is God’s people—those in whom He dwells.
The church is not a group of people gathered together around a common cause or set of ideas. It is a family. People who have taken on a new identity and gene-pool because of Someone they have come to know personally.
What makes this all tricky is that in Christ there is common purpose and mission and a new way of seeing the world. Unfortunately, if we get distracted by that, trying to create a certain outcome before there’s been a personal revelation of who Jesus is (and a total life repentance on account of who He is), we end up creating man-made points of reference for “the church.”
And church becomes disposable.
I love the church because I love Jesus. And the church is those who He has bought with His blood and is in the process of fully restoring to the Father’s original design.
The church is His people. As I love my people, relatives and friends who know me and know my family, even more I love His people.
For me to dispose of church would be similar to me disposing parts of my family. We can’t fathom putting our brothers and sisters on the street and saying, “I have no more need for you.”
But we do it all the time with church.
Why is that?
Perhaps it is because we see the church as a building or a group of people gathered together around a common set of beliefs.
If this is true, if the church is the compounded presence of God it people’s lives, then shouldn’t everything true about God be displayed through the church—His people?
Love, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, mercifulness, graciousness, and holiness, righteousness, blamelessness, faithfulness, perfect purity, unstained by the world.
Unfortunately, I fear most of us approach Christianity for what it gets us in this life and in the next. If we receive the blessings of Christ in being a part of His people, we’re all in. But if that’s true of our focus, then we’ll miss the reality God wants to bring into our lives, today.
He isn’t just looking to save us from eternity apart from Himself; He’s looking to restore us back to what we should have been since Eden. He’s looking for a people in whom to dwell and magnify His glory.
The fullness of God is displayed through the church.
Now, many would not look at their local church or what they have experienced in “the church,” today, and say they see God. The mystery of the Gospel is that God has chosen a broken and imperfect humanity to display Himself through. If you ask me, that’s a downright poor marketing strategy!
But what if marketing isn’t God’s goal?
What if He isn’t concerned so much about selling people on Himself through us, as He is with actually changing us? And what if, in the end, actually being able to bring about change in us (a people totally cut off from Him because of our sin) is, in fact, one of the best marketing strategies of all?
You know you are with God’s people not because of their perfection, but because of their surrendered-ness to whatever God wants to bring about in their lives.
I think that boils down people’s main frustration with church: we tend to get focused on creating a picture of God and fail to sincerely display God in the midst of our brokenness.
A common complaint I hear is that someone doesn’t have deep relationships with people in their church. And while I cannot disclose the identity of these people, I have heard this complaint come from ones I admire in how engaged with and committed to their church they are. These aren’t just the rebels and unhealthy energy-takers among us. They are the ones any pastor wants in his local church. I believe this happens (shallow relationships) because we’re so busy trying to display a perfect picture of God and have forgotten (or never understood) that God doesn’t care if the picture is flawed as long as He is shining through in transformation.
Now, I have also had complaints that I (or people on this blog) are too negative about the church.
If by “negative” they mean tearing down and trying to destroy God’s people, then I am deeply grieved and sincerely apologize. It is from my love for Jesus and His people (my brothers and sisters) that I desire growth, beginning in my own life. Therefore, if by “negative” they mean speaking critically of their idea of church and Christianity, then I respectfully appeal to self-evaluate their own motives.
I cannot know your experience of church or your beliefs and practices. I do not aim my thoughts on this blog toward any one group or individual in particular. Rather, I seek to address felt issues among the millennial generation, and I desire to address them through a raw and biblical lens.
What I mean is that I say it like it is. I’m fairly blunt, if you hadn’t noticed. Not because I seek to rouse a rabble, but because if you and I sat down for coffee, that’s what you’d get. It’s what I want in return. I don’t get embarrassed easily. I’d rather verbalize the elephant in the room rather than wonder if we’re all looking at the same one. That just seems silly, to me.
Furthermore, I want to live as close as I can to the Scriptures because I believe they provide the only sure message of God we can know and experience, today. I believe the Spirit speaks to us beyond the Bible, but we can only know it is the Spirit of God because of what the Bible says about Him. I don’t want to talk about issues just to provide space for whatever we want. I talk about them to provide a place for sorting through them and seeing (without intense emotions) what God actually says.
To grow in Christ, in His love and His Truth–that’s what I want.
And I am confident that at the end of the day anyone who names Jesus desires the same.
In conclusion for this article, I’d like to ask ourselves three questions (and I’d love your feedback in the comments).
First of all, are we seeking and open to the counsel of wiser members of the body of Christ?
This is like sitting down with an uncle or Grandpa and getting their advice on life. To reject them is to reject family. To pursue them is to gain wisdom and understanding. Because of the fluidity of life, we do ourselves well to seek out wise counsel.
Secondly, are we seeking to build up or tear down?
Building up does not mean we never say anything critically or negative. It means that in so doing we are wanting to encourage and strengthen the church, not destroy it. Is strengthening the church our desire? I don’t mean strengthening our ideas or finding better ways of maintaining what we have called church. I mean strengthening people’s faith in God, helping them find deeper relationship with Jesus. Is that our goal?
If it is not, even sitting silently tears it down.
Lastly, are we investing in the body of Christ, or wanting independence from it?
Because the church is the body of Christ, to be independent from the church is to be independent from Christ. This has tremendously messy implications, indeed (another post for another day)! But we dare not cut ourselves off from the family of God by choosing to do life without His people.
Furthermore, investing in, by serving and participating in the ministries of the church, we are renewed because the church is the body of Christ. If we build-up the church, we inadvertently build-up ourselves.
