Mon 30 Oct 2006
My buddy Lance (www.emergingunderground.blogspot.com) recently sent me the following bio of a friend named Eileen. Her comments are really thought provoking and revealing:
"I have a pain that dwells within that I have yet to find a cure for. 20 years of serving God has yet to find me that glove that so perfectly fits my soul. I have been AG-On-Fire with all night prayer meetings filled with wailing & travailing in the Spirit. I have been AG-Traditional where pat answers cannot bring life to the statues that warm the pews. I have gone in the total opposite direction, to a Tiltonite-Coplanite-Name-it-and-Claim-it-congregation with Barbie-like musicians and forced "rock" worship that was so fake it reeked of plastic. I hit road and found the We-Care-About-The-Community-Church, where more professional musicians worked the crowd into a "cooler" form of worship, pleased the ears and somewhat touched the soul…but not that spot. I head back to yet another AG, where discipline and discipleship ruled, worship was deep and heart felt, yet the gods of mean-spiritedness and gossip were esteemed higher than my Lord, and it grieved me to see such pain inflicted on already viciously raped unbelievers. This new year I have set out on a New Road, literally. New Job, New Church, New handbag full of torn and forgotten beliefs. I am not sure which end is up, all I know is that I want to love people. I want to hold them, and tell them Jesus loves them. I want to weep with them, bandage their wounds, and watch the Balm of Gilead create new hearts within them. I pray that somewhere in this I will be able to hold up my own torn beliefs, smashed dreams and oozing sores, find my God, and heal. Emergent conversation to me is akin to journaling with feedback. When I put into black and white my deepest thoughts, I receive pure unadulterated heart felt ideas back. It is a healing process, and it IS different….it HAS to be."
Her struggles sum up what many of us are limping towards. Ultimately, as someone eloquently put it, we all want a church/community situation that frees people individually to be part of the solution–and challenges them to be that solution. Even on 'the fringe' we have opportunity and the obligation to build communal structures there.
Community is tough. And messy. And many times we sacrifice 'I' for 'We'. As a result, I don't always get what 'I' want…but I can still step up and move from critic to contributor.
That doesn't mean it's easy. And it doesn't mean that every community will accept my contribution..
Thoughts?
4 Responses to “ I Dream of a Church… ”
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October 30th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
Good thought. The easiest thing in the world for me would to be a critic. Frankly, there’s so much in our denomination that needs criticizing it’s mind-boggling. It’s not an overstatement to say that I would vastly prefer in many ways to be elsewhere. Almost anywhere else. I don’t shy from it at all, but I’m still often embarassed to include the phrase “Southern Baptist” with a description of my identity, though it does often provide fodder for conversation.
Nevertheless, here I am and here it seems God wants me. And so I will continue to strive to contribute. I do love the students we work with. And I do take comfort in the idea (1 Cor. 15:58) that however feeble they may be, our work there is not in vain.
October 31st, 2006 at 11:42 am
Scott,
The war within our denomination has changed over the years. It went from men wanting a more conservative view of the Bible to outright HATE for anyone who disagrees with me.
We started out as a bunch of guys who could barely agree on much of anything, but agreeing to be civil and accepting of various views within orthodox Bapotist circles. What was once our strength, our diversity and tolerance, has become our divide.
I must be old school enough to know that we wrestle not with flesh and blood. Sure, I disagree with many southern bapitsts and the way they epically tend to screw things up. I also know that theologically, I have no other home (denomination) unless I start a new home.
Somewhere along the way, we forgot about LOVE. Love is not a feeling, it is a person. Many have taken their eye off of freedom in Christ for the temporal security of dogma. Love flows through theology, not the other way around and that is what it has become, what a sad day. No wonder the world hates us, we are not lovely or lovable. We are now, no different than the world; so why would they want to be like something that they already are?
Sorry for taking off and rambling. I feel compassion for this girl. At the same time I hurt in my bones that the American church has become such a cesspool of discontent for unloveable malcontents to come to so that they can have a pity party and wonder why no one wants to come to church any more.
Anicdotal sotry for fun. The other night when I got back from preaching, I told my mother in law about a church who had trunk or treat on Sunday night. She said that was horrible, they let out church so people who would not come to church to hear the message would come to get candy. then she said, “to heck with them if that is how those people think.” It lit my fuse and I went off. I said, “Sure, to HELL with every one of them. Damn every one of them to hell because they are not like us. We should go kill every one of them because they are going to hell anyway, to hell with them.”
She began crying, I went way over the top but I wanted to make a point because that is what the church has bacome. Damn them all to hell if they are not just like us, damn them.
October 31st, 2006 at 12:03 pm
Jimbo,
You bring up an interesting point. You said ‘love flows through theology, not the other way around.’ Can you expand on that? I’m trying to nail it down: Does our theology flow OUT of love, or does our LOVE flow out of the theology we own? Is that like the ‘chicken and egg’ question? I don’t really know.
And Scott….again, my HTML illiteracy shows…how are you blockquoting? Am I missing a plugin?
October 31st, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Tom,
since I am prone to be wrong, this may be a wronger as well, but I see love (God) flows through theology and not theology flowing through God. It is the greek concept I am looking at personally. It is the through statement. The world was created through Him idea of through.
I see love, (flowing through His self expression of Himself, theology. Our study of God should be based in seeing His love flow through the study and relationship.
I do not see the constructs of our personal theologies, personal beliefs flowing back toward God in love, I see His self expression of Himself as theology and the love flowing directionally toward man and not vise verse. Does love flow back the other direction, of course, but it is expressed in worship, adoration, praise, not necessarliy in our personal beliefs about theology.
Like I said, I see it as directional, not relational.