Wednesday
Mar242004
Giving up on church
Wednesday, March 24, 2004 at 10:41AM This post is from the defunct blog "Dying Church"
I'm now on the brink of giving up, not Christianity, but church. Not the true church, not the community of Jesus-followers who journey together toward God for his pleasure and for the sake of others, but the organization that has replaced the living body. Too often, the whole church event feels like that, like a well-orchestrated event more than a throbbing-with-life community. The raw realism of the Bible is too often sugar-coated with cheerily optimistic promises that God wants you happily married, financially secure, and alive with a sense of adventure and romance. Whether it's a megachurch parading its A-team every Sunday before a packed house of struggling people who are helped to pretend things aren't so bad, or whether it's a single congregation of a hundred faithful members trying to believe that life can work better than it does, the problem is still the same: Too often the church is aiming its people toward self-fulfillment through God's blessings and away from the failure and pain that could bring people together as the community of the broken but loved and hopeful because of Jesus. I once gave up Christianity as I knew it and discovered Christianity as the Spirit reveals it. I'm now giving up on church as I've experienced it and looking for church as the Spirit designed it. (Larry Crabb, introduction to Reclaiming God's Original Intent for the Church)
Reader Comments (5)
Wow, the last part of that quote really hit me. Thanks for sharing it.
Wow, I can relate. Good quote.
Ever look at "The Early Church in Her Own Words", the subtitle of Rod Bennett's Four Witnesses? As someone who has experienced both kinds of church you describe here, I am not at all unsympathetic with your remarks. But if you do not know well the early church -- which from your lack of concrete references to her, it seems you do not -- it seems a little arrogant to think that you are led to lead the reinvention of Planet Church for the 21st century and beyond. YMMV and all those caveats, but how would it hurt to look around a little more?
Hi Patricia: Nice comment at your blog. ;) I sometimes despair of comments too. Not sure what led to the shot about not knowing about the early church, or to your conclusion that I believe I'm "led to lead the reinvention of Planet Church for the 21st century and beyond." That would be very presumptuous indeed. But I just may take a look at that book. Thanks for recommending it.
What you feel, I've felt too. But for me, it IS the community of Christians that is the problem. Comfortable people, invested in materialism . . . or whatever their deal is . . . all too human. The organization only reflects and attracts them. But how far am I going to get down this road? Do we mark out borders and try to make our little group of "chosen" pure? That's an approach that's been tried . . . Can we say we are in the spirit of love if we write off most humans? I once tried to pour my energy into my spiritual community and found myself disappointed when people didn't live up to the expectations I had. Right now I am find my spiritual home in my own practice: prayer, silence, breath, awareness. I disappoint myself, too, but maybe because it's myself, I'm finding it's a school for me to be more compassionate. love Christopher