A real church, part three

A real church, part three

In my recent articles on a “real” church, I have tried to paint a picture of what I thought would be a healthy church. In it, we would have brothers and sisters learning from one another, not so much in their common present struggles but in their shared experiences of past and present, in addition to our diversity of struggle. (Would you allow me to take a slight tangent and address a situation, which has fueled many of these divisions?)

I think considerable time and money have been spent on Para-church ministries and organizations in the past century that should have rightly remained within the church for the edification and instruction of the local body. (Why have these organizations existed only as a product of 20th century American evangelical thought?) While there is much good which has come as a result of church outreach in terms of orphanages and missions organizations (and a good bit more especially in regard to resources and information), what has been lacking is not information but application within a strong covenant community, meaning a community of a diverse constituency (you define the diversities, if you will), where we come together in our common allegiance to Christ, to His Word, to the sacraments, to prayer, and to fellowship. I have even found that there are even some in the Body who would divide the worship service of God itself and put those under a certain age in another place for their own particular “relevant” worship. I cannot over state how evil I consider the idea of Kid’s church. If we are to be a people who have strong covenant families, the last place we need to be divided is in the worship of God. Church is not about a teaching moment for the lost or the saved, the young or the old, but about the worship of God by the people of God. May it never be! Kid’s church is anathema!!

Now back to the main topic of division within the body. It has been said, “idleness is the devil’s playground”. Proverbs 6 says something quite different, ‘There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him…(the seventh being) a man who stirs up dissension among brothers. Now what I’m referring to is not an “I’m of Paul, I’m of Apollos” mentality (divided allegiances coming from without the church). There are those who would make a personality of cult today just as there was in Paul’s day. What I’m addressing is division from within the local church body, I’m a “keenager”, I’m a “young pro”, I’m a “gangway member”, I’m a “Coral Ambassador”, and I’m a “young married” from within the church so that those we mostly fellowship with are those who most closely identify with. We identify so strongly with those who share our current experience whether through a Para-church organization or not, in such a narrowly defined area of life that we forget that our struggles are, as Peter puts it, “same sufferings” which “are being experienced in the world by your brothers”. Why are we so fractious then? Why then can we not come together in our differences whether in station of life, or age, or infirmity, or in education, or in income, race, or ethnicity? We have so much to learn from one another. Let us weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice regardless of their struggles or victories. Since struggle, temptation, sin, and hardship, trial and tribulation, as well as success and victory are common to man maybe we could even learn for our own benefit from those who are different. This is indeed hard because it requires something outside of ourselves, either in understanding hardship or rejoicing in someone’s success.

My main reason for this post is to address these divisions (within the evangelical church) and suggest not an example of what I think the church should look like but a means to arrive at this point. This last part will appear in my next post.