More U.S. Church Commentary

I'll have more Sudan material soon.

Bill Kinnon has articulated and expressed what so many "feel" and "think" in the church. While I don't agree with everything he has written, he's dead on for the majority. He calls his post, The People Formerly Known as the Congregation. The comments are important to read as well because they enlarge the context and a few provide a nice critique. I excerpt and elaborate on that below.

Excerpt.

Let me introduce you to The People formerly known as The Congregation. There are millions of us.

We are people - flesh and blood - image bearers of the Creator - eikons, if you will. We are not numbers.

We are the eikons who once sat in the uncomfortable pews or plush theatre seating of your preaching venues. We sat passively while you proof-texted your way through 3, 4, 5 or no point sermons - attempting to tell us how you and your reading of The Bible had a plan for our lives. Perhaps God does have a plan for us - it just doesn't seem to jive with yours.

In the comments, Pastor M. writes a nice critique and asks a valid question,

"As I'm usually the contrarian in any bunch ... What I'd like to know is what the opposite of your polemic looks like. I'm not disagreeing with you. What I've found is that every criticism that someone has is really an affirmation of something. I'd like to know what you are affirming. While someone probably needs to say what you've said, it isn't a healthy place to stay. What's your ideal church community?

Today, Kinnon links to Ed Brenegar's response, and elaboration. Spot on as well. Thank God for these men who are able to write what jumbles around in our brains.

Excerpt:

Many churches are simply institutions. They are all program and process. Other churches are nothing more than fellowship centers. Others exist as a gathering place for the discussion and debate of theological and social ideas.

What I've found is that every church, every person, every relationship, every organization, family or community needs to have all three dimensions functioning for them to be healthy. This does not mean that the three are equal in weight. From my perspective, relationships trump everything else. It is where the action is.

Ideas don't have to be living. Structure doesn't have to be purposeful or effective. Both of these dimensions can exist as externals that are held as possessions like pews in the sanctuary. This is why I say that for many people Christianity is an abstraction. It exists as an external object that we can hold and reflect upon, just like we can our favorite basketball team. Just because you feel emotions for some ideas or some program doesn't mean that you have internalized those things.

...

The internalization of ideas happens in relationship. It is where we learn how to apply these ideas so that they make a difference in the relationship. In other words, our relationships with one another should change us. If we have not had a transformational experience in relationship with someone, we, quite possibly, have been treating relationships as abstraction as well. It is just another thing to focus my intellectual and physical energy upon. In this case, people are things we use to get the things we want in life.