Being and Doing

I had this huge, great post on Being and Doing ready to go on Friday - only to have Blogger collapse as I tried to post it. But perhaps it was "fate" - this weekend more thoughts have been forming about Being and Doing. I'm going to try reconstruct a bit of the original post, and add in what's been going around my head too. It's been a while since I posted anything Christian, but here goes.
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I've been giving a lot of thought to Being vs Doing, particularly in the church area.

I grew up with a whole lot of Doing - going to church, attending meetings, getting involved in worship team and kid's church, going out to witness, holding membership etc. All those things that apparently make up normal church life.

All that activity can keep one REALLY busy, saying to the world "hey, look here, I'm a GOOD Christian! Look at all the stuff I'm doing!" And yet, one can sit in the same pew every week, wearing the same expression, doing the same things over and over - and still be maggots and darkness inside. No-one will ever know it. You're "fine" when anyone asks. You can keep it up for years!

I know, I did - not all the time, I did have my moments, but for a very long time.

Sure, I was the dedicated worship team member, always pitching up for appointments and training and services. But finally I couldn't take the contrast between inner and outer any more, and decided it was time to take a step back.

I needed to learn how to Be instead of just Do. And I felt I couldn't Do until I had Been for a while.

I still feel that way. Which is probably ironic, as we've being "Doing" church for the past two weekends, promting many to ask if we're back! (Last night my son insisted we attend - he even managed to eat, bath and get himself ready in 15 minutes to ensure we went)

But I still feel the Being is way more important than the Doing. I don't get the weekly pew-warming anymore, especially if there's no other indication that one is a Christian besides that one hour per week, or what you do when you're around the church building or church people during the week. I don't get worship teams and worship services (again, ironic - as I spent a good few years not only pushing them, but starting them and carrying them forward). Not that I have anything against them, but there are issues I have with the way things are done, the assumptions that are made about "needs" and what "worship" is and "excellence". I don't get it when people of one denomination sadly shake their heads at the fact that an entire island is of another denomination (poor, lost souls), but then turn around and be VERY unChristian to their neighbour. I don't get all the money being poured into buildings or events or evangelism. Couldn't it much rather be used to make a real difference in the community, even if it means we have no building to meet in, and hey - perhaps even have to meet in a HOME?! I don't get all the energy spent on maintaining the status quo while refugees and the poor and the lonely are left out in the cold. I don't get the in-fighting over petty issues (whether they be a difference in a specific doctrine, or how one should act, or a single word taken out of context - want examples? Just look around the blogosphere...)

All of which has made me rather suspicious of groups and people that see themselves as "right", having the "truth", insisting on (voluntary yet compulsory) attendance of meetings as a measure of how committed to God one is, or ostracizing someone simply because they feel led to attend a single service elsewhere (there's one lady here who is so scared of this that she simply won't dare, even though she's dying where she is). OK, so perhaps I sound bitter - but really, I'm not! Promise! It's just that my head is considering things very differently.

As a result I've found it hard to go back to church - though I've found it harder to get into "Christian community" outside the church, as everyone's holy-huddling! I find myself on the outside of the enthusiasm over programmes and budgets and new additions and meetings. I wonder what real difference it's making to the world outside the well-constructed walls. (As an aside, I read an interesting comment in an "organic church" article this weekend about building barns, then expecting the crops to come in and make themselves at home, instead of investing labour and getting your hands dirty out there first! Think about it - it makes a lot of sense...)

I still long to Be more than Do. I don't get it right though, much of the time. I struggle to love my neighbour - especially certain neighbours. I'm tight-fisted with my money (after years of struggle - but nothing compared to some!). I'm sometimes mean and nasty and not a good parent. I still let predjudice rule my perceptions of people. I know I'm spiritually messed up. I know I shouldn't judge others when I've got that big old log in my own eye - yet I still peer around it and point fingers.

The way I'm thinking lately would probably get me into trouble with many churches and denominations. Which is why I shut up and say nothing most of the time - and find it a strain to do so. I want to share what's going on in my head, but I know that many would never be able to understand my view, or hear what I'm saying - it's something outside of their mind-set, an option they'd never consider. Very often I feel like a complete outsider, while everyone is extolling the virtues of something or other I just don't see.

Yet I still feel it's something Very Very Important to think about, this Being instead of Doing. Or Being before Doing. It's what I'm trying to practice, even if it means I don't always look like a Christian (church attendance, giving to "causes", involvement in services etc.).

But it's a risk I'm willing to take.

I cannot do otherwise.