I’ve been thinking about the church lately. Not the one I go to specifically, but generally the church and how it works in my country, the good ol’ USA. Someone I know, who is a long time participant, leader, and voice for the church recently said “It is a weird church world today.” Now I know the church has always supposed to me weird in relation to the world. Didn’t Jesus Himself say, “My kingdom is not of this world” and “I have given them [the disciples and subsequent followers of Christ] Your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” Of course He did. So by extension, followers of Jesus (i.e., church people) are going to naturally look weird, strange or different relative to whatever current society in which they find themselves.
(As an aside, I believe this is one of the fundamental problems we have in the American expression of the church today. We think at some level that Christian culture is American culture and the church is shocked when the American culture doesn’t follow suit. This, of course, is too deep of a subject to deal with now, but I believe it is a dynamic of our American church experience.)
The core of vital Christian faith is only found in the founder, Jesus. If it is not about Him, for Him, to Him, from Him, under Him, with Him, and every other preposition with “Him” as the object of the preposition, it is NOT a dynamic Christian faith. The Christian church without Christ as the very center of everything is NOT A CHRISTIAN CHURCH! (I hope I didn’t yell too loud.) Without this foundation, church is only a club. Which brings me to my point.
I was chatting with someone that I dearly love, who is a faithful follower of Christ, consistent servant of His church and a personal friend, when we got on to the subject of the weirdness of the church world today. We talked about how hard it was, at times, to be faithful when our personal desires get in the way of those from Christ (by the way, you can find out what Christ’s desires are for every believer by reading the Bible). Our “likes” tend to move many of us to action more than any overriding and contrary truth. In fact, this tension seems to be, at least by my casual observation, the rationale for much of the American church’s choice in worship practice, preacher fame and other not so biblical reasons for commitment to Christ in a specific local church. It was somewhere at this point that the above friend said to me, “It’s hard to have a “me centered” relationship with Christ.”
I almost fell over when she said this to me. What a sublime statement of truth!
How this flies in the face of Jesus saying, “I am the way…”! Sure, we read this, but don’t we often say, under our breath, “There has got to be a different way”? If not out loud, don’t we at least say this sometimes in our hearts? Really, Jesus, is it really ALL ABOUT YOU? Is it really all about Jesus in sorrow, pain, disappoint, travail, loss, and unmet expectations on God, rather than doing it our way?
I don’t know about you (although I suspect you are the same as me), but leave me alone for 5 minutes without the grace of God and I am like the extension cord pulled out of the closet to be used for that special project needing electricity (you know the one that the wife has asked you to do for at least a month). It comes out all neatly wound up in a circle only to get tied in irreversible knots of its own making by just trying to extend it out of its serene rest. How does that happen? I think I know…left to our own desires, devices and dynamism, we are doomed. We will be doomed to the limits of the human condition, our own mental capacity and personal power. Without Christ, we are bankrupt.
The great “I Am” is not me or you. Submitting to this truth is probably the most difficult and liberating choice one can ever make. The Bible says that the Lord proclaims, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” With the confidence that only a Holy, Eternal and Loving God can give us in and through the fray, it is “hard to have a me centered relationship with Christ” when it is all about Him. Let’s consider, at least, the giving away of ourselves, shucking the me-ism of our culture and the lifting of His name in our hearts, homes and congregations. It may transform our culture. The real Great I Am would have it no other way.
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