I have had much time lately to reflect on my experience of the church. I have recalled some magnificent times, especially baptisms at the beach, various moving worship experiences, and many out-of-the-box creative services. But you have to be honest as well. I have been part of seven churches, and pastored in six of them. In many ways, having grown up in the church, been a youth leader, deacon, and then gone on to become an ordained minister, I have given most of my life to the church. But now I have only an overriding sense of disappointment. What happened to the dream of what church could be and mean?! The church is at its best when it is wholly focussed on the community context in which it operates, seeing local people engage with one another and share stories of life and faith. However so often it becomes about filling the morning tea roster, debating the music content of services, and other similar inhouse matters.
Why is that people outside the church are often simply nicer and more supportive than those inside the church? Being deliberately provocative here - but this is what my experience has often told me when working as a pastor out in the community. Why is there so much pretence of respectability, when so much other stuff lies not too deeply under the surface? This is where the hurt happens! And, the church certainly CANNOT claim to de doing all the good works in society - in fact their percentage might be rather low now, with so much general compassion being expressed (especially in times of mass tragedy). So, the church can't be taking the high-ground too often - especially given recent findings about horrendous past failings. Way too often people get seriously hurt and lose their capacity to trust. If all this is true, then why go to church at all? There are better clubs to give your time to.
The ideal of the church is of course fantastic, but it very rarely stacks up to this ideal for any length of time. Why is this so? Maybe one of the reasons is that once someone joins the church, or has been there awhile, they can get ahead of themselves, thinking they have become better than anyone else, and start to think they have the right to cast judgments down on others. Perhaps the theology spoken suggests that now God loves or favours them more than anyone else - which of course would be complete heresy. Everyone, right across society, has their problems and their challenges, their weakness and their strengths - and everyone is equally loved by God and has equal access to God's grace. People get in their 'righteous' huddles, complete with exclusive little cliques. Newcomers feel they have to toe the line and pretend they believe the same things - rather than being warmly accepted for who they are.
Perhaps people outside the church are just more honest and humble, having not formed too high an opinion of themselves. And when people are met with hypocrisy, lack of integrity, or just poor theology, the church bears no attraction to them. After all, on one hand, the beliefs often spouted are actually non-biblical or pseudo-biblical or the stuff of minority personal agendas, while, on the other hand, all the good community-building work is done by service organisations, advocacy groups and everyday kindly neighbours. The church needs to discover that deeply spiritual attachment to God that immediately impels them to really love their neighbour and seek the welfare of the city - not just huddle. The church needs to discover that God is on the move outward and onward - offering grace to those who have not yet had the chance to experience God's love. This is what Jesus taught us.
The bringing together of wide diversity (as a foretaste of heaven) is what the church can achieve at its best - discovering how sharing and encouraging one another can model harmonious society. Too often the church rejects diversity thereby becoming part of the world's problem, not the solution. Discussing the Bible from wide perspectives, rather than trying to make everyone conform to a narrow belief system, would certainly add value to the church. I have also been part of prayer sessions that have seen miraculous healing - simply because, I reckon, the people involved have shown so much unity of Spirit. I have seen people return to church simply because a church has been seen to be interested in the wider functioning of the local community. And I have seen genuine ministry at the sporting ground that would never be possible if the church just stays home.
