Last weekend, I learned something
new from one of our youth leaders. I
learned that “sucker” is a really bad word on the east coast of the United
States. A word that instantly brings
images of sugary candy on a stick to my mind elicits a very different response
from this woman who moved to Nebraska from Vermont. She told me about the appalled shock that she
and her children experienced the first time a Nebraska bank teller asked them
if they wanted a sucker. I knew English
words could have different meanings from what I was used to in places like
Australia, England, and Ireland, but I didn’t realize that there could be such
a significant discrepancy even within the different regions of the U.S.
Similarly, another word that produces
a wide range of reactions is “church.” The
fact that one word can evoke so many different emotions and images in the hearts
and minds of its hearers is mind-boggling to me. Some of those images may include:
A large room filled
with holier-than-thou, judgmental stares that make you feel worthless and
hopeless.
A quaint little white
building with a steeple, rows of wooden pews (perhaps padded with an awful
shade of forest green or nude pink), a pulpit, and a proud, old upright piano, in
desperate need of a good tuning, that seems to have become integral to the very
structure of the building.
A
repair shop for when things go wrong in your life.
A
place to meet people.
A horrible gathering of
fakers and hypocrites, all more concerned with their appearance than with the
reality of their hearts.
A boring thing your
parents made you do with all sorts of rituals and traditions that you didn’t
really understand or think were necessary.
A place where you go to
stock up on enough spirituality to last you all week long.
A good thing that you
don’t really want to do, but you do it so it will make up for all of the things
you did this week that you knew you shouldn’t do.
A residence for an
antiquated mode of thinking that is no longer relevant or needed since science
has given us all the important answers.
I
could go on for a while, and I’m sure you can think of more examples. With so many different experientially-based views
about church, it’s no wonder why so many people are walking away from it
completely, disillusioned by legitimate hurts and unmet expectations. It doesn’t help that church has gotten a bad
rap lately, particularly from we Christians ourselves. Yeah, I’ve been guilty of it too. How on earth are seeking people supposed to
be attracted to church, or to the Head of the church for that matter, when
Christians talk about it so derisively? While
I don’t disagree that serious problems can and do arise within the church, I think
that much of the general frustration and hatred towards church that is so
common amongst my generation stems from a misunderstanding of what the church
is and what it is supposed to do.
My
heart breaks when I see wounded and lonely people keeping far away from church
because of fear, bitterness, or a simple lack of understanding of what they are
really giving up. Being in full-time
ministry and having grown up in a family that was heavily involved in the
church, I am well aware of the things that go on that leave people so cautious
and skeptical. I have been burned, and many
people I love have been burned; yet, I still can’t imagine life apart from the church. Church is God’s idea, and to toss it aside is
to miss out on His beautiful design for this age and on the many blessings that
go along with that design. For that
reason, I want to take the next few posts to dig through the truth about church
(not too extensively – there is a whole subcategory of theology dedicated to
the subject!) and decide whether it really is as monstrous as it is sometimes
made out to be or whether it is greatly misunderstood.
