What is church..again?!
from Paul Mayers
I had a great time being on the panel which was thrown this question yesterday. Not least as it gave me a chance to listen to a diverse number of thoughts, both from my fellow panellists and from the people who were taking part in the seminar. So many differing views expressed for me to learn from, reminding me again that this is not an academic issue of reaching a correct definition but a living reality which we get to wrestle with together.
For me I find myself often pulling towards the sort of church that I would like – so ‘what is church?’ becomes ‘what would be ideal church?’ – it becomes about my preferences and experiences.
For example church should have a lot more worship [meaning singing] or a lot less singing and a lot more experiential forms of worship [involving touch/sight/reflection/quiet etc]. Or maybe it’s forgetting about church as a cultural irrelevance and just getting on living life in the community, following Jesus out there or having more church to try and make it a pre-eminent institution in our culture again.
I find it very hard to avoid falling into the trap of ‘if only we had [my] ideal form of church’ then everyone would flock to it’ [well everyone like me - God why did you have to make me so unique???].
The best thing i can do is take a reality check – remind myself that whilst I think church is God’s idea, part of God’s ongoing mission to gather us as his people, in his image as his bride – there is no ideal/perfect church. Church is, to quote Dickens, ‘the best of times and the worst of times.’ Not least cos it contains people called by God who are at the same time the best/worst, we have moments of amazing love and kindness and almost in the same breath we use and abuse each other. The miracle of church for me is not that we’re a bunch of blissed out people, arms linked, swaying in perfect unity whilst singing Kumbya in amazing acapella harmony – rather it’s that a bunch of such different people could stay in the same room for any length of time without cheerfully strangling each other.
This on-going miracle, which i’ll call the person of the Holy Spirit, allows us to have all sorts of different churches for all sorts of different people. It allows us to gather and learn to speak to each other not in the cultural language of right/wrong, in/out,correct/incorrect forms/modes of christianity but in the transcendental lived love language of the Kingdom of God: generosity, service, mutual submission and actively choosing to be for each other. Maybe that is what the process of becoming a disciple is about being good (fruit?) rather than just being right? In other words, for me, church is about a journey that begins to cost me, not something that meets my experiential preferences, whether that’s location, building, forms/styles, choices or even the people.
As I am starting to grasp this, I am realising that being church does not have to be about wading into the world around me and trying to get people to come back into my attractive christian culture – although it can be. It can also be about starting to do church, that is like yeast, so mixed in with flour of our culture that it is impossible to separate it out again and yet allows the kingdom of God to expand through us and change us. Church as the bakery of God anyone?
Hey Simon – absolutely love the picture. I love the idea of a church that is inextricably linked to the culture it comes from. That is a real challenge to the people who lead it – to help others retain Christian values and yet stay in their own culture. We have been all too good at encourging people to believe that transformation to Christianity is also about self improvement – up the ladder of success. The poor are often the most holy! so for example if we begin a homeless church, is it right to encourage people into homes?
Hi Diana,
Glad you liked the picture..from Andrew Jones I believe.
You wrote: The poor are often the most holy
thats a real challenge isn’t it. I am so challenged by Mother Teresa who not only has the sacrament of the Eucharist, but also the sacrament of the poor based on The parable of the sheep and the goats – “Whatever you do unto these little ones, you do unto me”. We are in the presence of God when we are with the poor…wow.
thanks diana, i think both the challenge and the most interesting parts are that the kingdom of God seems to spill over/into cultures – maybe the heart of the tension is between how culture is transformed rather than taken over/assimilated?