Coming on to the race, I can’t say I was the biggest fan of “church”. Many times, when I said I wasn’t a fan of church, the looks I got were looks of disapproval. How can I guy who wants to be a missionary call himself a missionary if he doesn’t even like church? I don’t know, but I didn’t. But I decided to give it one more chance. I wanted to see if the church around the world was different from the one I saw in the states. I wanted to see if it was the same as what I saw and had come to dislike so much. The answer: no.
Let me begin by saying this isn’t my declaration of hatred for anything, but a desperate plea for a powerful church to do something greater. A yearning for the body of believers to step up and change OUR world wrecked with hurt and disaster.
In a world where women are sold as objects, kids are blinded for punishment, and people live in communities where no one has family because the world around them is tearing apart, we come from a comfortable church known more for its political views on homosexual marriage, entertainment, if we need air conditioning, and what color our next set of chairs is going to be. We worry more about if we fit in and are “doing the right thing”, to be seen as a Christian as opposed to living like one. And let me just say, I’m not hating on people who have money. I love people who have money. It gives hope to a world that looks like it does. Hope that if we act on the love of Christ instead of acting on our political urges, we will be seen for who He is instead of seen for who we are, which as we can see right now, isn’t getting us anywhere fast and the people who need Christ as their Savior even farther in to nowhere, faster than we are going. It’s a harsh reality, but a reality at that.
And in my travels around the world, I have still seen the senseless traditionalism that plagues the church in America here as well. I have seen the influence of our “church” that leaves people bored and lonely passed along to a world desperate to follow after Christ, but instead follow a model that has people running and screaming, “ I don’t feel worthy”. What kind of place is that?
But there is hope. So much hope. There is a church that is moving. A church that depends on the Spirit instead of models that don’t work. A model of being instead of doing. A model where the suggestion isn’t “come to the church because you obviously need help” but “ go to a world that so needs My help.” A model where a missionary I met was too busy being the church to go to church. Where money truly was God’s and gave it away as freely as it was given to him to support his family. A reality that if we thought about it would make most of us upset. Too busy being the church instead of going to church? In our minds it sounds right, but lets be honest, if we saw that in America, we would wonder why they are wandering away from church.
Im reading a book right now by Shane Claiborne, and he says in his book that “there are so many things the church tells us to lay down, but what are we supposed to take up?” A pretty crucial part we are missing, isn’t it? So much of our Christian life is what not to do, that we forget what we are supposed to pick up when we “accept Christ”.
Picking up things like unconditional love and compassion on the wounded around us and around the world. Picking up the call to love the poor and take care of them when they can’t take care of themselves. A call to take action instead of aimlessly sitting in a congregation for the sake of a social club or to be seen as “doing the Christian thing.”
This isn’t a call to get rid of church. It’s a call to see us move past our complacency as a body of believers. It’s a call to finally believe that we are the hands and feet of Him who died for us. A call to see the church as it really is: a place for us to find community, but to move past doctrinal strife and become the part of Him who takes the steps to bring heaven to earth. A call to believe and act as though heaven can be brought to earth, because it can and its what we are called to do. And it’s a call to believe that the hypocrites that make up the church can move past being hypocrites and be moved by grace to seek and to save those who need Him desperately. And, Lord, let me be the first hypocrite to step forward…
