Do you "fit" in Church?

Donald Miller just wrote a great blog about whether today's church would survive if there wasn't a sermon. This on the heels of the day before's post on whether church produces only church leaders and is it missing a large demographic of other people?

I love the thoughts and where they meet me in my own unfolding church experience. I say unfolding because my view is constantly being formed and reformed and shaped by so many factors. I hope yours is as well!

Wanted to repost my response and hopefully get a little banter going. I am very curious about who my audience is and what you're thinking about.

Hi Everyone– I LOVE this post and it deeply resonates with my current reality. Recently I was participating in a BLOG poll for a Publishing House CEO and Leader who wanted to know his audience. As I went about the survey, something really rustled my feathers and haunted me the coming days (actually this has troubled me for quite some time only this survey hit the nail in more). When asked are you a christian? Yes. Are you a leader? Yes. How involved a Christian? Very. What kind of leadership are you in at your church? I stopped. Befuddled. Troubled. Looked at the categories. None. None? I had not one category to check.

See for 10 years I worked in the non-profit, interdenominational, para-church world. It was my ‘tribe’ for quite some time. Now two years into being “out on my own” I don’t know exactly where I fit? I have a deep passion for the church, God’s people, but when it comes to the institution–the day in and day out goings of a geographical place/building and people–I soemtimes feel really “out of it.”

I, like Donald, feel a calling to be an “ideas” person and articulate some of the human experience. I lead out of this and my positioning in the Kingdom is becoming clearer. I want to help people get more in touch with their souls so they can lead from that place and sustain their call wherever it is. Interestingly enough though, I still don’t know how this plays out in day to day church, or at least the way it’s been defined?

Sure I’ve felt some guilt. Tried to find a place to fit. But as I’ve been wrestling with this more and more I’ve often wondered, “Could it be that this because we are in the midst of a Great Reformation? Are these some of the symptoms?”

And you know what? In my heart I’ve landed that we are in a reformation….I’m curious what do you guys think?

Another thing to add to the pot is rethinking the way we’ve done church. A good friend of mine shared with me about a book he read THE SHAPING OF THINGS TO COME It’s a whole sociological and biblical take on church. Why have we made it about listening to only one person, or a handful of peoples ideas instead of a communal experience and living organism? A place where a pastor shepherds, an intercessor prays and shares, a prophet warns and illuminates, an exhorter calls people forth, a servant ignites passion to serve people hands on with truth, grace, and justice….where each person offers out of the Spirit living and breathing in them? Maybe what God is trying to say to us, shepherd us in, and call forth in us individually and communally would ignite more quickly? And we’d leave more filled.

Contemplating such things and experimenting with them in small groups have both inspired me and freaked me out. What I’m left pondering is…how do we need to reshape church? How can we facilitate more environments so everyone plays a part? Creating space where we actively look to each member to offer us their part. And how does this change the way we do church, think about church, and offer church?

What do you think? What do you long for, for the the church? Seeking friends, what closes you off about the church?

Join the conversation in my comments and/or Donald's Blog

p.s. after posting this I went on a walk and thought about all the lovely leaders and people I know in church who are "doing church" in such a beautifully diverse way. there really is no one way. like the church i attend now that is really seeking to open up the whole body to offering out of their gifts and talents. but i think it's good to long for more and engage the conversation. but when it's all said and done we are all just people, learning, and hopefully being stretched again and again to consider and reconsider the way we "do life together."

The Metaphor of Marriage

When I first started learning Soul Care from Patti I wasn't sure how couples would respond to me as a counselor who was single. I mean come on, even I might roll my eyes as a young doe-eyed woman began a monologue about the beauty, virtue, and splendor to the metaphor of marriage and how great it was they were seeking help in their marriage.

But ironically, Patti told me differently. "Susie I think because you hold up the image and standard, not jaded by the disappointment, you invite us to see it as Christ intended."

I had Patti to thank. Early on in my twenty-something spiritual formation, I was recovering from a broken heart and was left rather skeptical about how a union like this could ever work. It was then that Patti courageously invited me into "the metaphor of marriage."

What?

Susie, you have to first and foremost think of it in it's original context and ideal. Christ and the church. Husbands and wives in their union are to reflect that truth. It is only then that you can develop eyes to see what a husband and wife are struggling with in their marriage and what God is wanting to heal and reveal through them.

W O W !

She then began to paint the most beautiful picture of Jesus loving his church so much that he gives himself over to her again and again, for better or for worse. He loves to put her on display to celebrate her beauty, grace, and dignity. She blossoms in His Presence and people look-in wondering, "What's going on? I want that...How do I get it?" She joyfully comes under his tender strength and fierce love because she trusts him. He is always looking out for her best interest, coming alongside her shortcomings, and because of that special dignity she feels from him, she wants nothing more than to follow His ways and share in the adventure of life with him forever.

So are you like me? Did your heart weave in and out wondering whether I was talking about the church or marriage? And about mid-way, did you let out a deep sigh, wondering "When was the last time I experienced a marriage like that? Let alone came close in my marriage?"

When I first began to understand this, both the gift and crucible of marriage, all I wanted to do was marriage counseling. Because I think I got it...really got it!

Did these couples have any idea of the power and magnitude of healing that could be brought about through their love? Or worse, the devastation their bitterness and rejection of each other could cause?

Husbands.

Wives.

The reason your union has been assaulted from day one, is not because you are a failure, a mess of a christian, rather the enemy hates what you share and the image you bear! He uses every scrap of trash he can grab on, early on, to take you out. He hates love and he hates love that births life!

So what if spouses stopped seeing the other partner as the enemy and learned to fight for their spouses heart, as a reflection of Christ's love and his commitment? What if in the midst of all the tension, misunderstanding, woundedness, men and women began to speak words of life to one another? Guided each other into healing? Had the courage to ask others for help?

This is the gift John and Staci Eldredge have given us in Love & War.

Could there be a better title about marriage?

This is no news that I am fans, allies, comrades, whatever you want to call it of the Eldredges. I may not agree with every jot and tittle, but let's just say the very fact that they had the courage to sit down, pull up their sleeves, and offer the nitty gritty of their marriage, is reason enough for me to read it and want to learn from it. John and Staci are the kind of kingdom people who have helped me again and again stay the course (and prepare the course for marriage).

Not everyone gets a Patti Cepin who modeled, explained, and invited me into her own sacred crucible of marriage (to which, John and Patti, I am forever grateful). But I think a lot of you wish more couples, like the Cepins and Eldredges, would invite you in to learn from their marriage, if nothing less than to know you are not alone and there is hope.

Consider this my war cry for couples everywhere...Let's Start a Revolution. And like all Revolutions, it starts with the courage of the few... Why not gather a group of couples with open hearts (which almost always means broken hearts) and begin to journey together reading Love & War, letting it stew in your hearts, togather stand against the enemy's schemes, and go kick some kingdom butt together!

I can't help but wonder how the face of 21st century Christianity would be turned upside down!?!?