A couple of years ago, I wonder now with the naivety of youth, I was heavily involved in leadership in the life of the church and church related things. Full of enthusiasm, I loved getting together with my Christian family, whether that be on a Sunday morning for the ‘meeting’ or on a Friday night for a beer and curry. Full of passion I knew that God could change the world and that He could, and probably would do it through me and my buddies.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I am now not anti-church. I do not have the same passion and drive that maybe I did a few years ago but, now in a new congregation, I am once again involved at various levels. My expectations however, have certainly changed. Church used to be where I sought food and nourishment. It was where I sought the top up of passion to drive me through the next week seeking the glory of God. But I no longer look at it that way. This is by no means a reflection on my current church (or maybe it is, but not in a bad way). It’s place where there is a real sense of community and family. As a congregation we impact the local community and have a heart that, generally speaking, is seeking after God. So what has changed?
This is certainly, at least in part, a growth in maturity. I now realize that the main place I will find the nourishment I need is in my personal walk; my time I spend on my own with my God. Also, like crookedshore, I too have been thinking that I placed unrealistic demands on church; the worship must be amazing, the sermon must by inspirational, the relationships must touch places that normal relationships can’t reach. However I’m certainly not at a place yet where I see Church as discipline which should be endured (I also don’t like this idea of discipline and I know that this is not entirely what crookedshore was getting at). Thinking about it though, I might be on that road.
A wise man once said to me that if, at 20, you don’t think you can change the world you have no spirit. If at 30 you realize you can’t then you have no sense. Well I’m not 30 yet, but I wonder if I’m already at that point. Am I just cynical or is it a spiritual truth that we will eventually mature to this way of thinking? Are we supposed to move from demanding everything, to expecting nothing, finally maturing to finding strength in the discipline of the whole experience?
Maybe I’m just middle-aged before my time but is Church simply a cross to bare?
1:17 pm
I love Ephesians 5 where Paul draws an analogy of how Christ views the church with how husbands should love their wives:
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”
I don’t believe that Christ would love something so much for it to be something that is a ‘cross to bare’ - or should it be something that we are to expect nothing from.
In fact, as a married man, it makes me realise that Christ really really loves the church - as I can personally feel similar when I think of my beautiful wife. However, the argument we then get into is ‘what is the church?’ and that is probably the subject of a whole other post… In summary for me, it is the body of Christ - the meeting together of Gods people to learn about Christ and to live out His teachings.
I do think there is an important point here though that is well raised - and that is that the responsibility of our personal walks with God remains with us. We cannot be spoon-fed amazing teaching, great worship etc etc all our lives as that becomes what our Christian walk ‘is’ (and by implication, if that dissapears we flounder). However, when we combine the meeting together of Gods people, when our meetings are centred on His worship and hearing His word and with the personal journey of seeking God for ourselves and dedicating our lives to living out what Christ said then I believe we can really grow. I believe we need the church and I also believe we need to have the discipline to seek God for ourselves. The combination of the two is when we really start to take off.
Pauls take on it is that the message of Jesus was made known to us by God - and that message is ‘Christ in us the hope of glory’ (Colosians 1:27). If Christ is in us and we are part of the body (the church) then that places huge importance on the church. For if it is the ‘hope of glory’ then it sounds to me as if we should be making expectations of it - but from the viewpoint of seeing that ‘Christ in us’ starts with us and not with our pastors or worship leaders.