Monday, January 28, 2008

Churchianity


Isn't it amazing how messed up we are in the head? I can't help but think about all that I say and do in the name of Christ. It wasn't too long ago that I caught myself associating the word "church" with solely a physical building structure with a commercial property lease. I literally caught myself in mid-thought talking to another Christian- "Oh, you're a Christian? What church do you go to?" I thought to myself, how in the world did we royally mess this one up? I mean, did Paul write letters to the the Third United Reformed Methodist Church of the Holy Spirit at 1st and Market? C'mon now, that's whack.
Nevertheless, somehow over the years, the "church" has made what Christ called his body into what Christ might now call isolated body parts. I'm not a historian buff by any means, but its pretty obvious to me that when you look at the Bible's description of the New Testament body (specifically in Acts) and the general Sunday "service" of any run-of-the-mill body in America, something is not matching up-- actually, a lot of things aren't matching up.
Now what is there to do about this obvious discrepancy that we're staring at? In my experience, there are typically three plausible responses for a well-to-do Christian.
1) You can see the differences in what "church" looks like vs what the Bible describes it to look like and simply ignore it and keep on keeping on with your routine of sunday morning [1.45 hrs of welcome-sing-offering-sermon-pray-sing-snack] and wednesday night [2.15 hrs of "community" aka Bible study, accountability, prayer meeting, etc].
2) You can completely disagree with all that I'm saying and keep on keeping on with your routine of sunday morning and wednesday night.
3) You can ask GOD for more of what it means for the body to "devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the breaking of bread and to prayer", where "all the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Everyday they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people." (Acts 2)
Throughout my journey of recovering what it means to be "fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone" (will the real Senior Pastor please stand up?) I have seen the destruction and divisiveness that church-people can do and by no means are we called to break apart the body. However, it does seem critical at this point in history to break down the thinking behind the structures of churchianity (i.e. asking the question, "why do we do what we do?") and search for better ways to live this Christ life out.
All I know is that I am not content with the status quo and dare I say that I really don't believe Jesus would be either if he were to put on my crocs and step into any sanctuary in the US today. Now what are we gonna do about it? That is the question.

3 comments:

maddiwu said...

definitely have thoughts re: how church is seen, given our new context.

do you own crocs? though awesome thought of jesus sitting here in my seat right here, right now. changes how i see my day to day some.

kaleymayer said...

Amen! Time for change. THe thing that gets me most is 1 Corinthians 14:26-40. How are we doing this in "church?" You cannot be the body unless you are all doing something. Without action a body is dead.

Every body has a heart beat, every body has a never signal, every body has a regulated body temperature. If the body stopped acting it would cease to exist.

Isn't that what has happen, basically? At least on a large scale...

kaleymayer said...

and that was *nerve* signal... aha