All the wrong things...

I remember when I first learned to play sports. I loved thinking about hitting the game winning home run, sinking the game winning three pointer, or beating the buzzer with a "boomshakalaka" dunk. Those are the types of things I wanted to do to win in sports. And those things are great... unless that is all you can do. The guy that hits a lot of homeruns but bats .192 isn't a really great asset to his team. The guy that drains most threes but can't play defense or rebound or pass or dribble? He drains his team of one whole position for the whole game; the same for the guy who can only dunk. The reason it took me a long time to "get it" as far as basketball goes is because I never understood the principles of the game.

My frustration with the American church is the same. We are so worried about being "purpose driven" and seeing our numbers super-sized that we ignore the fundamentals of the game, if you will.

Why did Jesus come? To reconcile the world to God. I don't see anything about moving people from crowd to core or growing numerically. The fact is that sometimes doing God's will in the world makes us less popular rather than more. Sometimes we must take the role of prophet in the world, and most of us forget the the prophets were the equivalent of the stinky kids in class. They didn't have friends, they didn't get the chicks, and they sure didn't seem "purpose driven."

The disciples? Sure, they were driven by purpose, but it wasn't the purpose of growing their church. It was the purpose of growing God's kingdom. Now, the common assumption is that those things are synonymous, however, I don't think they always are. The church is called to live in strange counter-cultural ways, not to always grow "bigger and better." Do churches need McDonalds in them? Do churches really need parking garages or state of the art fitness centers? I don't think so. Now, I'm not sure that having those things is sinful, but it certainly isn't the best God has called them to.

So what is the best God has called the church to? Not sure that can ever be adequately answered, but I'll give it a shot. I think the church is called to be scattered at times, to be spread out among the people that don't believe. I think the church is called to be salt, and you never want too much salt in one place. I think the church should value fitness and good parking, but those can be done in a different kind of place. I think the church should be messy, organic and never homogenous. Each local church should be a unique manifestation of the church universal. We shouldn't be concerned if we are too small or too big. Do we trust God to draw people, to woo them?

Each church meeting should be a dangerous expression of the strange union between the divine and mortal. We should be creative, on edge, seeking something new, every time. We should ask the questions that people in power are afraid to ask. We should advocate for the weak, especially for the weak. We should be the staunchest supporters of those who we believe to be wrong. Most churches believe homosexuality is a sin, but most churches should be loving gay people with fierce determination. Most churches believe abortion is a sin, but those Christians should be loving the people who have and give abortions in a way that makes no sense.

Most of all, church should be a place where everyone is embraced. Church should be a place where we can't help but encounter a real God and his real (flawed) people. It should be a place where we can't help but be changed. Moving people from the crowd to the core is stupid and disingenuous.