When moving toward Jesus, moves you away from the church
I sent this out to the team of folks who pray for me this morning.
Yesterday I was talking to a new friend. We’ll call him Tom. Tom and I have know each other since the beginning of the year and I’ve often heard him talk about God, he’s generally working with someone else when I see him, so we rarely get to talk by ourselves. For some reason yesterday I asked if he went to a specific church here in Tulsa. He said, “I used to. Not anymore. We don’t go anywhere. It’s been an intentional decision for me and my family. It’s been hard and I think about my kids and what it means for them all the time. But I take God too seriously.” I told him I understood where he was coming from and he continued. Some people have told me that I’m being rebellious and I occasionally feel guilty for not going. But that’s not God telling me that.”
Tom is a smart guy. When I share this you might think he’s being rebellious, or arrogant, or my emerging friends might say he needs community to understand God. You all may be right.
But we have something to learn from Tom. You and I both. And there are a lot of Tom’s I keep running into my friends.
What do we do when people in the church essentially say, “A move away from the church, is a move toward Jesus.”
I think I know, and guy's like Tom are one more reason we're starting a community who will live with a different rhythm than the status quo.
Can you relate to Tom? I really do want to hear from you....
Yesterday I was talking to a new friend. We’ll call him Tom. Tom and I have know each other since the beginning of the year and I’ve often heard him talk about God, he’s generally working with someone else when I see him, so we rarely get to talk by ourselves. For some reason yesterday I asked if he went to a specific church here in Tulsa. He said, “I used to. Not anymore. We don’t go anywhere. It’s been an intentional decision for me and my family. It’s been hard and I think about my kids and what it means for them all the time. But I take God too seriously.” I told him I understood where he was coming from and he continued. Some people have told me that I’m being rebellious and I occasionally feel guilty for not going. But that’s not God telling me that.”
Tom is a smart guy. When I share this you might think he’s being rebellious, or arrogant, or my emerging friends might say he needs community to understand God. You all may be right.
But we have something to learn from Tom. You and I both. And there are a lot of Tom’s I keep running into my friends.
What do we do when people in the church essentially say, “A move away from the church, is a move toward Jesus.”
I think I know, and guy's like Tom are one more reason we're starting a community who will live with a different rhythm than the status quo.
Can you relate to Tom? I really do want to hear from you....
Labels: Church
posted by mark at
1:49 PM
3 Comments:
Mark, I'd love to post a little response to this, but I'm just buried right now. It's something I struggle with and am trying to figure out, especially as someone who is currently getting paid to do youth ministry full-time. Hopefully Monday I can take some time for a response.
I definitely relate to what Tom is saying, and I'm quite perplexed about what to do about it. As someone who has an undergraduate degree in youth ministry (and now am pursuing an MA!), the institutional church is good for my "professional career."
But on the other hand I spend tons of time daydreaming about what it would be like to do youth ministry without being paid for it, and it is a very freeing thought. Reading emerging church types pushed my ecclesiology beyond a typical western church model, but here I am working in an ELCA church. My heart keeps tugging at me to do something new and innovative, but then I wonder if that is the right approach given the relationships I have already built in my current context.
In Tom's situation, I really have no problem with people leaving their current church, but not with the Church, if you get my drift. To me it is impossible to say that to move closer to Jesus is to move away from the church because Jesus is in the Church. My ecclesiology takes Paul's phrase "body of Christ" seriously, that as the indwelt by the Holy Spirit people of God, the Church is now the primary means of God's revelation and work in the world. To remove yourself from the church completely and try to be a church with just your family isn't being the church, in my estimation.
Now, you didn't say anything about what kind of community (if any) Tom is in right now, so I'm not speaking directly at his situation, but complete isolation is dangerous.
I don't know what I'm moving toward, but I know what I'm moving away from. And because I think what I'm leaving is hateful and damaging, I think that in some way I am moving toward Jesus. If that makes any sense.
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