Spiritual Formation

Monday, April 14, 2008

On the church



What we think about when we think about the church matters. Growing up there were two misconceptions I used to have about church that tainted my view of my God, my self and others.


1. The church as a particular place. As a good Irish Catholic kid I used to believe that the church was a really holy 'place' held up by four walls. The church was a destination you frequented on Easter and Christmas and maybe a few other times out of the year if you were a good kid. Simply stated, the church was a particular place, not a peculiar people. One of the first things that I started realizing when I was baptized into Christ is that the church was a living, breathing entity. It was a organic community. It had a pulse and was on the move. . .in specific times and places (usually not inside those four walls) the church actually felt like a living human body or like a really big family. How exciting when I begin reading the Bible only to find that these were the precise metaphors Paul uses to describe the church.


2. The church as a gated community. After we left the Catholic church, we joined a "Bible believing" church. Although I have much good to say about this particular body of believers I definately began believing that the church was a gated community. You know those really rich homes that lie within suburban cul-de-sacs behind rought iron fences. Gated communities have always reminded me of places where the bad is quarentined to the outside and all the good is possessed by the few who have the privilidge to be an insider. In my experience for a season of my Christian walk it sort of felt like maybe the church was just one big gated community. Keep the bad out and the good in. Only problem with that paradigm is well....Jesus. Jesus liked to tear down rought iron fences of religiousity and self-righteousness. In fact, he was always wandering too far outside the fence. He even said that he came for the sick, the blind, the lame and the outsider. So, maybe the church isn't as much a gated community as it is a hospital. It's a place for the sick and dying to come and receive new life and health. Perhaps some are in the ICU, some are in surgery, some are in recovery, some in labor and some in physical therapy. But, the hospital is no respector of persons. It takes anyone with any problem at any time. It's a place where sickness and remedy come together. Where brokeness is replaced with wholeness. I like the metaphor as the church as a hospital. A hospital sounds a lot more exciting and more transformational than a gated city in the burbs.

1 Comments:

  • Hospitals even have folks who are brought in by ambulance. They may wake up and want to go home. And they are free to do so. But often they remain to find their health being restored. They may not become a triathalon athlete. But health and wholeness and restoration is the journey of those who participate.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:37 PM  

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