How would you respond to that statement? That the Church/Christianity is f***ed up?
That’s what one of my co-workers said to me this evening. Some of you know that I started working at Starbucks a few months ago to get some extra money and maintain my connections to the Other outside the sanitary walls of Seminary. She had asked if I was “going to school to be a pastor or something” (cause I guess that’s the word on the street!) and I said, “sort of.”
And that’s when she dropped the f-bomb.
It didn’t really bother me all that much because 1) I drop a good ‘bomb’ myself every once in a while and 2) I agree with her!
Now don’t get me wrong: I love the Church and believe whole heartedly that she through Jesus is the hope for the world. But the type of Christianity that I grew up with and the type I encountered on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. was…let’s just say it left something to be desired!
So we spent the rest of our shift talking about the Church and Christianity. While she and I had a wonderful chat about my own spiritual journey through fundamentalism in Grand Rapids and Washington D.C. and spiritual ‘shift’ 3 years ago, the amazing part was listening to her spiritual journey. I could tell there was a lot of pain and frustration with the Christianity with which she was familiar. Her 18-year journey through West Michigan churchianity left her jaded and cynical about the Church, but still searching after God. West Michigan Christianity will do that to you, ya know.
After our shift I started processing our conversation and realized more than ever how crucial it is that we get the Story right and that we point people simply to Jesus. As I said before: who is the Jesus we are showing and what is the Story we are telling? I’m all too familiar with the Jesus and Story West Michigan Christianity is showing and telling. But how about you?
Who is the Jesus you are showing each day?
What is the Story you are telling to people about God and His Reality?
Because, as I witnessed up close this evening, the Who and the What to those questions are incredibly, incredibly important for the spiritual journeys of other people, let alone ourselves.
Certainly, the Church is messed up. As is Starbucks. And Seminary. They always have been and always will be as long as they’re full of people stained with sin. Only when Christ comes and wash us clean will we be what we ought to be.
The biggest trouble with the Church is that we are touted as being somehow better than other institutions. Maybe we should be and, at our best, we are, but too often we’re just as sinful as any other corporation.
I agree! Sometimes I think Jesus is so laden with interpretations and agendas it is hard to recover the image of Jesus as a whole and holistic representation of humanity and God instrinsically as one — both a bridge, and a walking illustration into which we can walk, like a magic picture book. Like anything, what Jesus we see and mimic is the in the eye of the beholder.
Yeah, the church is jacked up. i feel like I am experiencing it more and more these days. Seeing how much people love their comfrot and their built up walls of theology rather than loving grace and peace and love. Those things are fluid and not easy. And sadly most people would rather be comfortable. If I can barely stand the church, its no wonder most outsiders can’t stand it!
I feel her pain! Ever wonder why there are so many para-church organizations in the last 100 years??!!
Yeah, the church is screwy, but it beats whatever is in second place.
We are the Church. We are the problem. Just because we see bad marriages, does not mean that marriage is not God’s institution. So it is with the Church. It is God’s plan to tell this Story. Let’s figure out how to do it better and not give up on her.
BTW–here in CA we actually F-bomb in church!;-)
I’m not familiar with West Michigan Church? I’m from Michigan too, originally. I must remind myself a lot that this Church I find online is not the one I find on Sunday in the pew. This bizarre Catholic fundamentalism is scary. I’ve heard the most outrageous things stated as “Church” doctrine, and worse, they invite us “dissenters” to get the heck out, even if it means the Church shrinks by 50%. Course they don’t see their dissent (mostly that certain popes haven’t been ultra conservative enough) as worthy of what they term self-excommunication. Had I meant these folks when I first decided to convert, I never would have for sure.
I’m not sure the church is better than whatever is 2nd best. God will use other things/people to bring the Kingdom outside the church institutional/theological if the church keeps crapping all over people.
oooh. Jemila I like ur thinking! It always intrigues me to see all of the Kingdom efforts of the Other that God is using for His glory (ie: Amnesty International, Green Peace, etc…) There’s an org/mag called Adbusters that has much more of an intuitive gauge on the pulse of the Kingdom than the church does at times, without even knowing it!
And others: I agree the Church is filled with flawed people, but that’s such a pitiful excuse for the fact, as Jemila says, “the church keeps crapping all over people.” We are responsible for the Jesus people see and the Jesus we show; we are responsible for the Story we tell and the Story people hear. I guess for me that’s the point of this post and the lesson I walked away with last night…
So often the church is a place of “should” both theologically and in its praxis and this intrudes on the spaciousness of grace. Christian theology plus its cultural/human baggage itself becomes an impediment to Christ living in and among us. How can surpass our sinful conceptual constructs and ways of being with people? Sometimes I think you have to become un-Christian to become Christ-like.
I frequently agonize about finding a better church than the one I attend now. Our deacons have poofy hair and cowboy boots, we don’t have a praise band and are proud of that, our pastor looks and sounds like a Mr. Bean pastor … my church is downright embarrassing. But when I took a look at my church through the eyes of Romans 12 I find it a good place to be to find communion and joy. I look around our congregation and love them all.
cathy that’s beautiful! I am apart of a smaller community, too, and I’m loving it…so much messier and more authentic than the mega church I was apart of in DC (though I totally appreciate the megachurch place in the ecclesia, too!)
what we don’t necessarily need is to bleach the church of cowboy boots and poofy hair deacons or paint a glossy sheen on the music, but rather communities that intensionally and deliberately live out the Way of Jesus. That I think will change peoples perceptions of the Church much more than the latest and greates church growth/marketing gimmick Lifeway or Family Christian Stores is offering…
I agree — people walking with one another and God is significant and intimate in a way gimmicks and consumeristic approaches can never approach.
As I read the Old Testament writings I think the same thing of the forefathers of our faith. Liars. Cheats. Adulters. Murderers. They were all messed up, and yet this is the history through which the church comes.
I don’t see it as an issue, I see it as our history and I see it as a challenge to do the name of Christ better justice. I also see it as a grace…on the part of God to use such wicked people…over and over again.
yeah I’m with ya Josh. It does amaze me when I look throughout the OT and see such a Harlot, and then realize how much of the Church reflects that…how much I reflect that. And for me the tension is in “seeing it as our history” like you say and also playing my part in re-writing that history or revising it for those around me. “Wonderful Grace of Jesus” all the way down, but sign me up to showing and telling better in the New Year!
I’ve been reading through your post and the comments. I too feel that we “do church” very poorly. With that said, we still are the church whether we like it or not; whether or not we go to a building on Sunday morning and sit in a pew. I talk with younger people every day at work about their lives, and their hopes and dreams and that is church also. . . building relationships and sharing Christ’s grace with them.
Amen Jay…we ARE the church! We ARE the Body of Christ, the very physical, incarnated presence of Christ within the world. We are called to be JESUS to the world by especially building relationships and sharing His grace with them…and I know for ’08 I hope I be him a little better than I was in ’07.
-jeremy