Coming into Ireland I had all these ideas of things I would struggle with or challenges I may face, but God had a whole other list of things He wanted to teach me. One of those things was my view on the Church and what the Church is truly supposed to be.
We are partnered this month with Causeway Coast Vineyard Church and are helping out in many facets of ministry within the church and their local partnerships. I truly love and value this church, what they stand for and impact they have in their community. What I love is that every aspect of Vineyard church is about reaching the lost, meeting their needs, building those relationships, and showing them the love of Christ. And from what I have seen, they are doing it extremely well.
You can ask random people on the street if they know of Vineyard church and more than the majority will say yes, and have a positive reaction to the church and their ministry.
That is not the case from what I have seen in America. Yes, people know of the churches that have been there forever and the big mega churches.
But, has the community had a personal encounter with that church in some way? I would say not likley.
Do they feel loved and valued by that church? I don’t know, maybe, but probably not.
Why do the people in our community not know our churches, why do they not feel loved and valued by the church communities?
My thought, we are too worried about maintaining this idea of ‘church’ to actually start being The Church.
We had a chance to talk to one of the lead pastors and he was telling us the vision of Vineyard church and how it’s all about reaching and loving the lost. If any part or program of the church is not doing that, it gets changed or taken out.
Sounds harsh right? I thought so too, at first.
They cut parts of the children’s and youth ministry for a while until they could figure out a way to make it outward focused.
That would never happen in some of the churches I have been too in America.
Why? Because, it would cause them to lose members of the church.
And that is true, the pastor said when they decided to re-evaluate every ministry and had to cut some, they lost members and it was hard, but the call of the church was to reach and love the lost.
The end.
If that was not happening their church was not fully glorifying the Lord.
I feel like there is this fear in churches of losing members, so we just walk around on egg shells to make everyone feel comfortable, but in the end it just creates this bubble of believers that we call church.
And the thing is, I think we have the idea of church all wrong. First of all, we should not be going to church.
Yes, you read that correctly, we (followers of Christ) should not be going to church.
We ARE the Church.
We should be going to Worship. On Sundays the Church, the Body of Christ, should be gathering together and going to collectively worship the Father.
Where or how that is done, in my opinion does not matter, but this idea we have of ‘church’ and what that has to look like is getting in the way of actually loving the lost and showing them Jesus.
I am not saying I have it all figured out, or that all the churches in America are doing it wrong. I am not saying that at all, I just think there are lost people in our communities not feeling loved by our churches, and that is not right.
