Church is.....

Church brings up so many images for people. I'd be crazy to think I could describe all of what they might be, but I'm sure some of these ideas are close to the perceptions of some.

1. A place to go.
2. A lot of stuff to do.
3. An organization to belong to.
4. Something entirely irrelevant to both one's secular and spiritual life
5. The beginning of one's spiritual life.
6. The place where one's friends are.
7. The place where some really cool experiences with God have happened.
8. The place of some deep hurts.
9. A gathering of believers.
10. A place of sweet unity or bitter conflict.

I've been really struck with the idea lately that church is more a state of being as the result of something as opposed to something to do or somewhere to go. Things to do and places to go are certainly a part of my emerging image of church, but aren't the basic definition of it.

I look at the statement of Jesus where he said that where at least 2 people are together, he's there. Then when I look throughout the New Testatment, I find that so often the church is related to being a body where Jesus is the head and believers are different members of the body. While I've grown up with that analogy, it's striking me in fresh ways that the church is a body-a living organism. If you don't have a head, you're not alive. So the key to church is individuals having Jesus as head of their lives, then they are automatically a part of His body and thus His church.

It's like when I was born into my family, I automatically was assigned the family name. It's not something I earn, go to, do or anything. It's something I am.

So when at least two believers assemble together, you have church just as much or more than you would during a weekend "church" service because church is the result of Jesus as Lord and being in fellowship with others to whom He is head and Lord.

If church as you've known it has been far from what you'd hoped, I invite you to ask God to begin to reveal to you His real church and what He's doing in and with it.

Here's Goes

I'm excited to begin sharing some of my interests regarding spirituality and religion. These ageless topics, although they can cause much controversy, affect all of us in some way. Hopefully someone will be blessed, challenged, or whatever needs to happen as I share a bit of my journey. I will start by sharing a recent article I wrote for my local paper. It embodies some of my beliefs at this point.

Parson’s Pen

Jesus was not a religious person!

“What”, you may gasp.

Before you write me off as either blind or heretical, allow me to explain myself.

Religion, in my simple terms, is a human system for practicing spirituality. I believe spirituality affects all humankind as it is an elementary part of our makeup, just like physical, emotional, etc. Not only is it a basic part of us, it is a very intimate part of us. Thus the practices and beliefs that we develop for our spirituality (i.e. religion) are very important to us. We’ve all seen both the good and the incredible damage that religion can do to a society.

So why would I propose that Jesus, a figure at the heart at one of the world’s big religions, wasn’t religious?

As I review his life I find that he instituted virtually no religious systems or organizations for people to practice and follow. He never built a church building to gather his followers to. He lived free and unburdened by the heaviest of religious traditions. So it shouldn’t surprise us to note that he was in trouble with religionists constantly. It was a religious system that killed him because he disrupted it so much. Sound familiar? Religion kills people today, and not just physically. Many hearts here in this town have been hurt emotionally and socially over religion.

The amazing thing about Jesus, in my eyes, is that as much as he repulsed religionists, he attracted those that either weren’t bound by religion or had been hurt by it. From my view of Jesus’ life, he was not a promoter of religion, but of relationships!

He was always developing relationships with people in every walk of life. The relationships that he developed were infectious. People flocked to have a piece of him and feel his relational blessing. His personal spirituality was guided not by religion, but by a relationship with his Father, who others coldly referred to as GOD.

Religion has killed many people. Jesus never killed anyone, but was himself killed by religion. Was Jesus just a pushover? No. He stood his ground for his beliefs. He bucked religious systems that he saw hurting people and relationships, but even in so doing, he found ways to love the people in the systems he was bucking.

I believe Jesus vision was to start a movement of people who shared positive relational life with the world around them.

To me I see this as what the world desperately needs. We have way too many religions already. The world is full of systems that help some and harm many others. But the one thing the world over needs is caring loving relationships. Everywhere I look, behind the toughest and most successful personalities, are folks that can use caring a person to come alongside and support them in the journey of life.

I hope that as a world we could learn a lesson from Jesus. That we would be not so concerned about our religious systems and more concerned about the incredible opportunity for building relationships, including a relationship with our Heavenly Father!