Believing in…Church
Dec 12th, 2008 by ljkim
The hardest part of the Apostle’s Creed to really believe in is the part where it says “I believe in…the church.” This is also one of the main things we “fake” (see previous post on faking). Medieval Christians convinced themselves that the church was a building. If you told them that Jesus said it was NOT a building, I’m sure they’d agree with you, brush off the point, and then return to how important it was for the church to be a magnificent building. And they were magnificent! Today evangelicals think of the church as a “Worship Service” or an organization. Going to church means going to a “worship service.” And as a result I think typical worship services are more enlightening and entertaining than ever! Now just the way churches might need buildings at some point, I think churches need worship services, but the Church is NOT a service, or an organization. It is a radical family of Jesus. Radical because it’s a family not based on human blood relation, but Jesus’ blood. A shared identity in Him. They shared time and possessions and lives… A second century philosopher (called Aristedes) described the church in this way:”They do not call brothers those who are after the flesh, but those who are in the spirit and in God“; he went on to describe how the people of the church looked after widows and orphans and those in need as though they were family.
Anyway, a point from last Sunday’s talk was that we need to believe in the church. We’ve actually become quite cynical that real church can happen. We settle for “more realistic” versions of churchbecause we can’t accept the radically loving community that embraces sinners and yet trusts in God’s power to change us. A radical community that resembles God, that takes the idea of justice and mercy and steadfast love and acts it out in real life…daily. But unless we believe in God’s power to make the church after His own heart and character, we wind up losing faith in God’s heart and character altogether…relegating it piece by piece into the realm of abstraction.
So here’s the lesson in a nutshell: Don’t fake church. Take the things we’re bad at and let’s confess them (articulate what’s really wrong with it) to one another and to God, asking forgiveness, and relying on God’s power to make us grow and change… I’ll take that over a fake church any day.
[About the photo: I lifted this off Google Images, but I used to live right down the street from St. Johns... On nice days I'd take my Hungarian Iced coffee and go sit by the garden where the peacocks roam.]
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people only seem to make comments on dating posts. why is that?
anyway… i didn’t know there were peacocks in the city!
yeah what’s the deal with that? Maybe I should change this to the all dating blog.
Yes peacocks, and I think an albino peacock too (or am I just imagining that?) at St. Johns.
St John the unfinished? What a pretty neighborhood in the shadow of a cathedral. It must have been a lovely place to live. *sigh*