On Being Churchy

Image Credit

Okay… so I found this blog post about the church being “churchy” from Samuel Kee in my FB newsfeed.  Let me start by saying that I totally loved this article!  Kee definitely on point at calling the church to task… and I’m with him 99.99%.  In fact, I loved the following lines,

 …if you’re a jerk, then, by all means, stop being a jerk.  But, don’t stop being the church.  Those who don’t like us must not dictate who we are.  That’s like allowing a blind man to lead a seeing man through the gauntlet.

Let me tell you about the .01% that I think is missing.  A few years ago, before everyone and their dog started sharing their opinions about why people are leaving the church and how to know when your church is dying etc., there was some talk about redeeming things.  An old abandoned box store could be redeemed as a church building, or perhaps a certain song may be redeemed by providing an unintended allegory of God’s love or something.  And so on.  No doubt the thrust behind this redemption movement comes from Leviticus 27 or Colossians 1 or any number of other scriptures.

And that’s the angle I think Sam is missing… redeeming the “secular.”  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really disagree with anything he said, but I would posit that (at least sometimes) when the/a church looks like the world around it, the motivation, the method and the message can still be pure (wow – look at that!  I just pulled an old Baptist preacher trick right in the middle of this article and alliterated what could easily be a three point sermon.  Where’s the poem?)  What I mean is that if Tomlin, Smith & Herbert write a worship song about a dance floor that looks very worldly (HELP! I saw a blog about this just a couple of days ago, but can’t find it), can that not still be useful and God honoring?

Consider a missionary who goes into a remote jungle or hillside where a people group has no recognizable language.  Does the missionary set up shop with the gospel in his native language and expect the people there to just figure it out?  No, he learns their language and delivers the message of the gospel in methods they can understand all from the motivation of love.  Right?  Well I agree that to an extent the church is to be churchy… that whole holy thing.  But if we don’t at least look a little bit understandable, we’ve lost.

So, as Sam encouraged us, “…stand firm.  Be churchy.  Be Jesusy.  Be the light of the world.”  But by all means, be “churchy” in a good way.  Some donut shops are better than others. Donut shops are different than they were 20, 50, 100 years ago. Should the church not strive to be effective? And Paul’s word in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23… does it make a case for at least an element of “fitting in” (I use quotation marks because I realize that phrase could easily be exaggerated and no longer describe what I’m trying to say) in order to accomplish the task of the gospel?

Single Post Navigation

← Older Entry

Newer Entry →