Church and Me

I'm still on a church-attending break. It's still the best thing I could be doing. But now and then I get the urge to spend the day at my dad's church (that's it in the pic). Nearly everyone I know who has visited there has loved it right away - it's just got that whole good thing going.

Well, I told my dad about it recently, and that there's really nothing like that around here, and he said, "perhaps you should start one"! Nice thought, but...

A church is the people. His has this exquisite mix of unique folk, who build each other up into even better folk constantly. There's no way one could duplicate that, and I wouldn't want to. It also has a lot of resources, ministries, a building, a band, a budget....

For me, here, now, the kind of church I want and need looks very different. It looks like a cafe-church, where art and creativity are welcomed and explored. It looks like hacking alien vegetation out of a riverbed and clearing out the rubbish. It looks like hand-in-hand building up of the poor in the squatter camps - getting your fingers into the soil of a new community garden and helping to patch roofs, rocking a baby and playing horse with the kids. It looks like a day at the animal shelter, on a regular basis. It looks like a meal and a living room. It looks like a safe place for the kids to be kids. It's got solar panels on the roof and a recycling bin out back. It's where the people are, not behind a security fence or out in the suburbs. There are beds in the corner for those who need an overnight home, and a small apartment across the courtyard for the single mom who just needs a break to get them back on their feet. There's no cross on the roof or denominational name on the door (which is always open) - just people coming together to live out the many aspects of their faith.

It's not the kind of thing you "start" nor is it the kind of thing you generally "find" already happening - not here! But it's what church looks like for me.

Talking to my family members over lunch this weekend, it's what church is starting to look like for them too. For a lot of people. Sheep without shepherds (too many of their shepherds are doing things I will not write about here, killing their congregations en masse). Turning around in confusion, wondering where to from here - knowing something has to change, something is changing. Each of us come with our own strengths and missions - sis-in-law's mother is making teddy bears for adult rape survivors, others are still discovering where God wants them. Maybe, just maybe, one day we'll all come together in a surge of strength toward that Living, that Being that our souls are panting for.

But no - I'm not going to start one. I'm not going to force anything or anyone into a pattern or copy of anything else (been there, done that, burned out). If something happens, it will be because God makes it so, brings people together, creates it. I will wait and listen, develop a passion, live out my faith as I can - and then, perhaps, when the time is right, join others in doing the same.