We know in our heads that church is not a building, we know that it is not a service, and we know that it is people. We know that it is relational and yet we struggle with its relational nature, in reality being in church means being in gospel relationships with our church family. Too often we function as if it is the very things we have said it isn't; a building and a service, why? I think there are a number of things we subtly absorb from our culture that cause us to think wrongly about church and to drift, which Hebrews reminds us is dangerous, from true church.
1. Family - we live in an age when because of the astounding rate of family breakup we make family so precious that sometimes there is no time for church family. We become so preoccupied with protecting our marriages, keeping our spouse happy, spending time with our children that we do not have a real relationship with the family of God - in which case we are not really in church though we may be 'in church' in terms of the building and services.
2. Fear - we are commitment-o-phobic and that's not just the malaise of twenty something men, it is something we see increasingly in the world around us full stop. If we have been hurt in the past we refuse to trust again, to let down our guard so we keep people at a distance and forfeit the working of the gospel into our lives that they would have blessed us with. Again when we do so we are not in church.
3. Consumer Mentality - sadly it is not just businesses that carry out cost benefit analysis, increasingly it is the way people approach church, will this church meet my needs, will it have the style of music I like, is there a group of people like me, and so on... Rather than stopping and thinking where can I serve, how will this church enable me to work the gospel into the lives of others. When we treat church as another consumable we are not 'in church'.
4. Avoidance of challenge - our culture does not like challenge, it does not like the idea of being confronted with something that is wrong. By contrast the Bible says that our church (the relational body of people) is given for our good to speak the truth in love to us. Now there is much that is done in the name of speaking the truth in love that to be blunt isn't, but that doesn't mean we ought to avoid genuinely speaking the truth in love when we find it. Having someone speak powerfully into your life to challenge you about sin or misunderstanding is a great gift of God when exercised in love (Prov 27:6 "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses."). When this isn't happening we have to ask am I in church?
5. Electronic communication - we are surrounded by more modes of communication than ever, already this morning I've been emailed, messaged, tweeted, and texted. Yet the irony is that not one of those is real meaningful communication. They are not relational modes of communication, it is convenient detached communication. They are useful for conveying information but not building relationships, and as they have exploded in terms of use so loneliness has increased, we long for real communication. Real communication involves a presence or at least a voice or even a written letter. I think these media have had a knock on effect that we have lost some of our interpersonal skills. We just don't know how to build friendships and to really communication meaningfully, when we can't do that with our church family are we in church?
6. Apathy - Our cultures greatest legacy is apathy, people who are driven stand out not because they are extra-ordinary but because laziness is the norm. We live in a generation that just doesn't care, or doesn't care enough. The danger is that this can infect the church so we go but do not engage, we listen but we don't hear we never take time to work out the implications for us this week. And we need to be warned if apathy characterises our attitude to church then we have already started to drift from our faith, we are already not in church.
So what's the remedy, it isn't some new programme it is "believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."(John 20:31) We need to revisit the cross and the empty tomb and see what Christ has done for us there. We see an incarnation and a sacrifice that calls us to relationship, we see something that is more important than anything else in the world and will transform everything in our worlds. That will not allow us if we truly grasp it to drift from those who will work it into out lives for our eternal good.
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