Many are shifting to conclusions that the church body is not defined by individual congregations and that given the paradigm and its’ inclination to miss the point, one’s commitment to it (the congregation) is not equivalent to one’s commitment to Jesus. The shift in theology that continues to force this divide looks something like this: It sees making a sandwich for the poor as a posture of worship equal to that of singing songs of praise or adoration to God in a gathering of other followers. It sees spending time with friends over dinner as viable as mingling with them in a church building. It sees teaching your kids through bringing them along to give clothes to the needy as valuable in spiritual formation and learning as sending them to a classroom for an hour. (from last week’s post)
This isn’t an “either/or.” I don’t have to do one or the other. I can do both/and. I can make a sandwich for the poor, sing songs in an auditorium, hang out with friends over dinner and in a church building, take my kid to class and to give clothes to the needy. As I have said countless times, my interest here is not to simply discount our institution nor marginalize the people that make them up or run them. I (at this point in my life) am a paid minister at a church. Yet while I admit this “both/and”, I also am increasingly asking “but why?”
Last fall while teaching an adult class, I said something to the effect of “In many ways, our institutions and all that go with them have become monkeys on people’s backs.” This was in reference to the vast amount of resources (man hours and money) that it takes to keep some of our institutions going. I have talked about this in previous posts. An adult in the class took somewhat of a cordial exception to that comment and said something to the effect of “It is not a monkey on our backs. It is the work of God. It isn’t easy. We have been called to take up a cross/burden.” At that point there was a need to clarify. Living this way of Jesus includes sacrifice, selflessness and undoubtedly doing some things you don’t really feel like doing. But, what I was talking about was not the hard work of the way of Jesus, but rather the work of running our institutions as they are currently organized. I have articulated some of this before in my post “the way to The Way …” in June. I basically propose that Jesus claims to be “the Way” and the church organization steps in the middle and claims to be “the way to the Way” selling its’ programs, events, facilities and management all for a weekly “fee” or “contribution”. The problem with this is that I think our organizations have added a lot of extra to this way of Jesus. Thus, they, not the way of Jesus, can become “monkeys on our backs.”
Last week I also wrote this: “Especially in our heritage, dedication to the institution and its’ meetings/programs is completely synonymous with dedication to Jesus. Being a part of the "church" (the body of Jesus) and being a part of the "congregation" (our institutions) is the exact same thing.” In my opinion, it is not. When I criticize our institutions and how we have organized them, I am not “battering the Bride of Christ.” To me it is more like taking some shots at a first cousin once removed. There is a relation but not close enough to take it too personally. This is not to say that what is being done by or within our institutions is not good or even great in some instances and as I have said, I am not calling for the end of organized religion. I hope that just as I accept the answers someone would give me on why they attend a congregation, that same person could come to understand why someone might not attend or at least really struggle with attending a congregation. I have attempted to poke enough holes in our organizational set up that someone who is more institutionally loyal minded could at least not blame someone for searching.
What I mean is this: In a conversation on another blog, the author was reviewing a book that hits back at the inconsistencies of the emergent view. With in the post and following comments, he (and I have heard this view a lot more recently from other authors) was lamenting but not discrediting the number of books critiquing the church. He acknowledged that some (not all) of the critiques where valid, however he stated that he wished there would be more written on “new horizons in spiritual formation and mission.” Fair enough, but the problem I see with that is this: Where is the experimentation going to take place in order to explore these new horizons? Within the institution? That has the makings of less of an experiment or an exploration and more of a 40 year wilderness trek. I just don’t see that happening efficiently.
Maybe it is necessary for people to leave. As I have said in this post and the last one, leaving a congregation is not equivalent to leaving “the church” in my opinion. It can all be very complicated, emotional and personal, but maybe it doesn’t need to be. Maybe if we were less concerned about our institutions and more concerned about truly being like Jesus, than we would see the need for each other. The institutions don’t need to die tomorrow and those within it should be respected for who they are and what they do in so many ways. Yet, those who find themselves stepping away are not “apostate” nor simply “narcissistic coffee house babblers.” Instead maybe they are explorers in a way. Maybe true experimentation needs to happen outside the walls of the organization. Maybe if our doors were open to each other, the institutionally loyal minded and the emergent could then work together seeing a need for each other, at least in this moment in time.
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