The Life of Church

What is the life of the church? In other words what is the very basic element that makes the Church an actual church? Is it the ministries we engage in on a weekly basis, such as LIFE groups, Sunday activities, or administration? Is it the name, the logo, the marketing? Is it the people that lead such as the pastors or elders? Is it those that attend services, activities and give money and call it tithing?

Well, I am certain you have a great answer to that question as do I, but is our personal opinions really what makes the church the church? For the past few years I have noticed that we seem to be becoming anything but the church. A coffee house, a concert, a children’s consortium, all things that typically come from preconceived notions of what we bring with us in church experience and or our conclusions as to what will be interesting to those around us and those are just the new things, lets not bring up the traditions we carry into church each week!

So to answer the question from my viewpoint I think the life if the church is actually what is not in the church to begin with. I believe the life blood of any church is the person(s) that are not attending. What I mean is that those that don’t know Jesus personally or maybe they do and have given up on experiencing who He really is in the context of other people. We call them unbelievers, the lost, seekers, visitors, new comers. You can name them whatever you wish, but bottom line is they are the life blood of a church.

When they come through the doors, people change. When they come to know Jesus for the first time, the atmosphere becomes electric. When they step into baptism and publicly commit their lives to Jesus those around them are ecstatic. I have seen one unbeliever light up a room of dead Christians faster than that “twinkling of an eye” thing.

Don’t believe me, put just one unbeliever in the middle of a bunch of believers and see what happens. Right or wrong, positive or negative there is energy in the room, there is vigor in the church when unbelievers show up!

So if I am right that those we tend to not care about are the answer to our own mission of existence then why are we not busy connecting, reaching and sharing with them? Why are we so tied up in our own lives? Maybe it’s because we never thought about church this way. Maybe it’s because we never realized that it is consumerism that keeps us from Christ. That sucks the life out of our churches while confusing us with personal growth.

Maybe it’s due to fear. Fear that we will lose what we so desperately love! What we love about church, or the American dream church is keeping a standard of “meism” that drives consumerism to higher points each week. Often it is that dream of our comfortable church life that it keeps us from connecting with those that will help us find our true lives in Jesus. Jesus told us in a hard bit of words that He has come to draw a line in those areas, that “…Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸ Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Matthew 10:37-38)”

Difficult words to read and even more difficult to experience. See I realize that when I ask God for a vision for my life and truly want His vision then it will be followed up with a mission that I and ONLY I can fulfill through obedience to Him. On that path I have to learn what Jesus states six chapters later.

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. (Matthew 16:25)”

What are you placing in your life or in your “idea” of church is so important that it’s actually killing you?