Monthly Archives: April 2016

Ideal Church

All I want in a church is…

My wife and I broke up with our church in January. We had been there for three years, and it’s not what you think. We have never been church “attenders”. We have never been the people who demand that we be served with a product that is to our liking, or we will take our business elsewhere. We invest.

This was our second church in the past ten years. During that time, my wife started a MOPS group and served for two years as its director. I did a yearlong pastoral ministries internship. We both started and led small groups.

Here’s the problem. You have to believe in your church.

You have to believe in the gospel that they preach.

For me, there are two “must haves” that I used to assume all churches had: room for the Holy Spirit, and grace for one another.

Room for the Holy Spirit

We live in a secular age, and through the power of human effort we have accomplished a lot. It is tempting to “do church” the same way. We make a plan, we set a budget, we track our progress, we achieve our goal! God’s kingdom is advanced.

Here is the problem. In none of this are we experiencing God. Some religions work fine that way, because they consist of a list of dos and don’ts, principles to observe, rules to follow. Some people treat Christianity as one of those religions. But it is not.

“I am the vine and you are the branches,” says Christ, “so long as you remain in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Christian faith is not a system, it is a relationship, a window into a larger world, and like Luke Skywalker vs. the training droid, you cannot connect to that larger world while remaining fully in control.

Grace for one another

All churches claim to have grace. Some even name themselves after it: a Google search for “grace church” comes back with over 100 million hits. It all sounds good, and you can go to those churches for a long time before you realize where the grace is limited.

Maybe grace is available to you…

To my mind, limited grace is no grace; it smacks strongly of loving only those who love you.

My dream

Last week at Starbucks, my wife and I ran into a dear old friend from two churches ago. We were delighted to see her, and all of us nearly made ourselves late catching up. Since we are “between churches” right now, we asked her where she is going. Turns out, she is also “between churches”, and I spent a few minutes sharing my vision of a Spirit-filled, grace-filled church. “I know, right?” she agreed, “I’m just not sure that a church like that exists anymore.”

Deep down in my heart, I believe it does. The word of God assures me that out there, somewhere, there are former pharisees and former “sinners” who have found true redemption. Somewhere there is a church of all of them.

Somewhere, meeting together, are those who have recognized their own imperfections too deeply to ever exclude others for languishing in imperfection; whose faith in their own power is limited by the memory of a time that only a power greater than themselves was able to restore them to sanity.

Somewhere on Earth, there is an echo of that great church, a multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language, praising God together.

I am praying to find that church. All I want in a church… is that.

April Fools' Day secret

Of deep dark secrets and April Fools’ Day

My family loves April Fools’ Day. It’s a classic day of lighthearted pranks, what with the biscuits that look like chocolate chip cookies and the purple food coloring in the toilet tank. We are tricking the people we love and it’s all in good fun, but on this day, I can’t help stopping to reflect, just a little, about the deeper questions of truth and untruth.

When does a prank become a “little white lie”? When does a little white lie become a deep, dark secret? And what is the harm of a deep, dark secret anyhow?

What’s the harm?

The truth has become a slippery commodity in the 21st Century. There is almost no claim you can’t support with a little creative Google searching. From global warming to GMOs to gun control, whatever side you are on, you can find experts to back you up. The result is that many of us have simply thrown up our hands. “You believe your ‘truth’, I’ll believe my ‘truth’, and they will both be equally ‘true’.”

This works fine for things like, “Is it better to shop at Vons or CostCo?” because really either way will work. It works less well for questions like, “Do cigarettes cause cancer?”, and even less for, “Does the third rail cause death by electrocution?”

Bottom line: some things are true whether we like it or not. There is an inescapable reality to confront: in the natural world, in the choices we make as a society, and— most importantly— in the personal choices we make in the course of our day-to-day lives.

Secrecy is a red flag

Scripture says, “People loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” That is a litmus test. If our “truth” is a harmless one, we can generally tell because we’re happy to talk about it. I have a friend who loves shopping at CostCo and will talk at length all the great deals on 12 pounds of nutmeg.

On the other hand, suppose we find ourselves thinking, “Well, I shouldn’t tell him about that, it’ll only upset him.” In my experience, more often than not, such omissions are motivated more to hide my own shame than out of any genuine concern for others.

I heard a public service announcement once that said, “When you’re lonely or sad, it’s always there for you… If alcohol is working for you, maybe it already owns you.” But it is just as true for every form of addiction, whether shopping or food or gambling or pornography or drugs, or anything else that the Bible warns can hold us captive. What fuels the addiction is the secrecy and shame. It may seem ridiculous, but all of us recovering addicts can relate to the plight of “the tippler” from The Little Prince: “I drink to forget… to forget that I am ashamed… ashamed of drinking.”

And the truth shall set you free

Scripture offers one prescription for those of us in the throes of self-damage or self-destruction: start by getting rid of the lies.

  • When he [the devil] lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
  • But let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No” be “No.” Anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
  • Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin… Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

As we joyfully trick the people we love this April Fools’ Day, let’s spare a moment for some internal spiritual house cleaning, and see if we can find some ways we are “tricking” them that may be not so joyful.

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