I had an email conversation with a friend yesterday. We were not sitting in the same room, I could not hear his voice inflections and I have no idea what his facial expressions were, but I had the most amazing sense of knowing the essence that is him. We used to be together a lot and he and his wife are dear to me. Even though we are no longer in each other’s space frequently, I realized that when God cements people together it is so real and so strong and so permanent. There have only been a couple of times when I was a part of what I believe to be real community. You know, the kind where your guard is always down, where ideas are respected and heard, where help is a cry away. It's also probably interesting to note that I have been a part of the church my whole life.
I started wondering why it is so hard to really connect within the church. I mean, we have all kinds of small group and fellowship programs established, so it’s not lack of opportunity. There are certainly plenty of casseroles if someone has a baby or an illness, and sympathy cards aplenty if your loved one dies. Lots and lots of study guides. And for some, I suspect that they can label these behaviors “community” and feel like that’s enough.
Not me. I want the real deal, the kind where you can really screw up and be loved anyway, the kind where one can truly rejoice when another succeeds, and the kind full of relationships that persist in the face of defense mechanisms and differences of opinion.
The church has yet to transform itself into a culture where truth telling is honored and understood. We still operate with a 90 day probationary period, so if you’re new, we’ll tolerate anti-church behavior, clothing and thinking for about three months, but we are expecting compliance within that time period. And, with its continued coasting away from the Gospel, the church has lost its bonding agent, the unifying idea worth working toward together. Building programs can only substitute so long.
Those precious days, when I knew I belonged, were based on the fundamentals: truth-telling, an idea bigger than ourselves, and love that evened out the uneven parts of each other. I think we may have been entering the Kingdom together, step by step and push by push, in it together as if we were super glued.
2 comments:
The church is just people. It will transform itself when individuals transform themselves. This may just be me, but I've learned that my sense of community almost always has more to do with me and my choices than with others and their choices. When I choose to be in community, I am. When I'm feeling like I'm not in community, it's usually because of choices I've made. Has that been your experience as well? Thanks for your insights. I think they are from the Lord.
Blake - Hi. Nice to meet you. Great comments here and I think you're right - often the individual makes decisions to embrace or reject community, and I considered that for myself as I read your words. Thank you. There is, however, an opportunity for the church to facilitate authentic relationships nonprogrammatically (is that even a word?). I happen to believe that the church gets things mixed up when we suppose that we should form community (small groups, Sunday School classes, etc) and then go serve the world (you know, a day at the local soup kitchen or church work day). I believe the opposite to be true - in serving the world, true community is formed. I suspect it is the ongoing, persistent loving of others that creates the kind of freedom in relationship that my post mentions.
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