Something Just Ain't Right
David VanCronkhite
Atlanta Georgia USA
"Something just ain't right!" You know it. I know it. If we didn't, why would we be batting around all those powerful and much needed "re" words so much: renew, revive, reformation, restore, revolution.
We study, we search, we create as if we were about to build something new under the sun, something uniquely discovered by our generation of mystics and theologians regarding a new look, a new form of church, something never before seen. But what if our elusive search to re-define church is not about a form or structure, or a doctrine or tradition or culture at all. What if it is more about entering and embracing a supernatural realm of a supernatural Kingdom. And there, and only there, we discover who we are is lacking, and not the form or structure.
Maybe we would and could care less about the form if we were to enter His Kingdom and restore nothing more than the most neglected ingredient, that one ingredient, that makes the Kingdom irresistible -- love. Maybe, just maybe, the Church He is coming back for is more about the supernatural exchange that He is orchestrating on the inside and not the outward container of her expression; more about "being" rather than any particular form or structure or statistical measurements of growth and income.
When it's all said and done, maybe He is more concerned with the singular issue of "Did you receive my love and did you give it away?"
Ponder this again: God sent His Son to proclaim a Kingdom -- a love-based, supernaturally relational Kingdom -- and invite us to enter into it. Centuries of forms and traditions have sidetracked us into focusing on religious structures and organizations and watered down versions of the Kingdom proclamation. Yep, "something just ain't right" about this Church.
What if the world actually did know that we were followers of Christ simply by our love one to another? What if our love caused the world, even the Church, to turn to Him so that our "being" love could stop the foolishness of our detached proselytizing methods, doing everything under the sun to get people to pray a prayer, when all they want is all we want, to be loved and love?
What if God really did establish a Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven? And what if it really is founded on a foundation of love where we supernaturally enter this supernatural Kingdom, receive a supernatural heart exchange and get a new spirit and heart so full of love that our own minds begin to be transformed daily. What if we begin to see people through a realm of existence we had always thought impossible but now it is simply a way of life, receiving love and giving love?
This week I was talking with someone very dear to me but who our American Church would call a 3X loser. Even though her passion for Jesus is far greater than most Christians I have met, the church places her outside their walls of redemption because of her life struggling with sexual sin. She has been written off with the religious prose of "I love you! I hate the sin," (shallow words that reveal our shallow concern for our neighbor and our shallow understanding our own sin.)
Jesus seemed to be very comfortable around people like her. As a matter of fact, He intentionally hung out with people just like her. He understood, as we frequently don't, that those who are greatly forgiven, greatly love. As she was debating in her woundedness whether to walk away from self, her spiritual family and, worse, God, I had to ask her, "What do you really want?"
Her answer went like this: "I know what I want! I want to be part of a group of people who love each other, who actually get along, and where I can be real, where I can be myself. We could talk, do music as a group of people. I wanna feel connected 'cause I never feel connected. I want a real family 'cause I've never had a real family where I feel I belong. Yea, that's it. That's the main thing I want."
Then there was a long pause, a very long pause until words of love came out of her broken, hopeful heart. "Then, I want to a make other people feel like they belong!"
Belonging. Connecting. Supporting. Forgiving. Being real. Could this truly be the Church, this elusive people of faith who love? If so, then our struggle is not so much with the "re-anything" of our outward forms, structures, or traditions as it is with the heart of the Kingdom -- no more, no less than His amazing love for us, and ours for Him and one another.