point number one
this article at relevant magazine got me thinking... what would my perfect church look like? or at least what do i think is important in a church.
this isn't supposed to be a reactionary list or a condemnation of existing churches, nor do i think that this church would exist in an imperfect world. this is just a thought exercise. i'm thinking of these off the top of my head, so they're in no conscious order:
1. emphasis on grace and love
- it's difficult to say without sounding self-righteous, but listen: jesus came to save me, not to judge me. i do not care about any of your ridiculous, human-imposed religious restrictions and whether or not you think i follow them well enough. grace and love are the only things that can save this world and the only things that truly matter to people once you dig through all the world-imposed gunk that has been piled on top of them. jesus overcame everything, including death, through humble grace and love -- take a hint.
2. true honesty
- honesty is the most important value in my life (which is to say i desire it in everything, not that i'm always able to live up to it myself), so i want a church where the people are not afraid to be what they are and feel what they are feeling, whatever that may be. i qualify it as "true" honesty because it means letting it impact your life, not just trying to sympathize with someone who is depressed by dramatically saying "hey, sometimes i get sad too". true honesty hurts because it means compromising your ideas about how life should be and letting God into your deepest parts.
3. intelligent examination of the scriptures (old testament in particular)
- christians are ignorant when it comes to the book they believe is the word of God. intricate parables with multiple shades of meaning concerning the love of God are trivialized and used as a step-by-step self-help get-out-of-debt seminar (or worse yet, a prosperity gospel seminar). old testament verses are quoted out of context and used at will to support the opinion of the speaker; psalms are quoted as beautiful poetry while the intent of the poet is left unexamined; the other thousands of years of jewish writings are ignored and condescendingly called the "old" testament which is far too complicated for you common people to understand, so it's best to just stay away from those books with the funny names. here, just read this fun story about a whale. oh but don't read it too close or it may change your life. [/sarcasm]
4. distributed leadership with everyone contributing their individual personalities to decisions
- i think this is where it starts to get a little iffy concerning whether my dreamchurch goes along with the bible or not. i'm pretty sure we'll really take a turn for the worse with number 5. i don't know much about the "leadership" books in the new testament or what paul/peter really says to the early church leaders, but either way i don't really agree with the way it's interpreted. i think it was written for very specific churches and circumstances, and you shouldn't model any other church off of those examples. bottom line is i think everyone deserves a say and i don't believe in church leadership except having an older life mentor to go to when you need guidance/advice/a shoulder to cry on.
5. lack of bible being centric in teaching or "qualified" teachers teaching
- told you we were getting more controversial. i talked earlier about the misuse of the bible and ignorance of its true meaning. this is directly related to the unspoken requirement that a pastor must speak on a passage of scripture or use scripture to back up whatever they say. if you threw a box of fortune cookies at my feet and asked me to prove my perspective on something, i could piece together some lame explanation using the fortunes, but Confucius would be rolling in his grave. in the same way, pressuring pastors to be knowledgeable and to prove everything they say with scripture leads to grabbing at straws and using verses out-of-context to seemingly support a point. thereby, popular misconceptions are perpetuated through miscommunication. don't be afraid to say "i don't know"! the image of christians as pompous fakes is because they purport to have an infinite existance and infinite knowledge completely figured out and the answer is "everything you've figured out so far is wrong and i'm right." as a culmination of the previous five topics, i believe any person should be able to "teach" by honestly saying what they're dealing with and how God is with them through it, or how they've seen God in any of their life circumstances whether good or bad, or how they're scared that God doesn't exist, or any of an infinte number of ways that we can encounter God once we shed man-made religion. it can't be overstated how psychologically unhealthy it is to repress your fears instead of being honest about what you're feeling.
6. lovelovelovelovelove
- i can't stress it enough. neither could jesus. everything i hate about christianity is due to a lack of love. just CALM DOWN and look at the people you're dealing with. they're people. you know, those things created by God, from dust, just like you. we are scared dirt people who are running around trying our hardest with everything we've got to find the One Thing we were created for, and it hurts to be separated from Him, so we are going to do some weird things. you still have to love. no matter what.
this isn't supposed to be a reactionary list or a condemnation of existing churches, nor do i think that this church would exist in an imperfect world. this is just a thought exercise. i'm thinking of these off the top of my head, so they're in no conscious order:
1. emphasis on grace and love
- it's difficult to say without sounding self-righteous, but listen: jesus came to save me, not to judge me. i do not care about any of your ridiculous, human-imposed religious restrictions and whether or not you think i follow them well enough. grace and love are the only things that can save this world and the only things that truly matter to people once you dig through all the world-imposed gunk that has been piled on top of them. jesus overcame everything, including death, through humble grace and love -- take a hint.
2. true honesty
- honesty is the most important value in my life (which is to say i desire it in everything, not that i'm always able to live up to it myself), so i want a church where the people are not afraid to be what they are and feel what they are feeling, whatever that may be. i qualify it as "true" honesty because it means letting it impact your life, not just trying to sympathize with someone who is depressed by dramatically saying "hey, sometimes i get sad too". true honesty hurts because it means compromising your ideas about how life should be and letting God into your deepest parts.
3. intelligent examination of the scriptures (old testament in particular)
- christians are ignorant when it comes to the book they believe is the word of God. intricate parables with multiple shades of meaning concerning the love of God are trivialized and used as a step-by-step self-help get-out-of-debt seminar (or worse yet, a prosperity gospel seminar). old testament verses are quoted out of context and used at will to support the opinion of the speaker; psalms are quoted as beautiful poetry while the intent of the poet is left unexamined; the other thousands of years of jewish writings are ignored and condescendingly called the "old" testament which is far too complicated for you common people to understand, so it's best to just stay away from those books with the funny names. here, just read this fun story about a whale. oh but don't read it too close or it may change your life. [/sarcasm]
4. distributed leadership with everyone contributing their individual personalities to decisions
- i think this is where it starts to get a little iffy concerning whether my dreamchurch goes along with the bible or not. i'm pretty sure we'll really take a turn for the worse with number 5. i don't know much about the "leadership" books in the new testament or what paul/peter really says to the early church leaders, but either way i don't really agree with the way it's interpreted. i think it was written for very specific churches and circumstances, and you shouldn't model any other church off of those examples. bottom line is i think everyone deserves a say and i don't believe in church leadership except having an older life mentor to go to when you need guidance/advice/a shoulder to cry on.
5. lack of bible being centric in teaching or "qualified" teachers teaching
- told you we were getting more controversial. i talked earlier about the misuse of the bible and ignorance of its true meaning. this is directly related to the unspoken requirement that a pastor must speak on a passage of scripture or use scripture to back up whatever they say. if you threw a box of fortune cookies at my feet and asked me to prove my perspective on something, i could piece together some lame explanation using the fortunes, but Confucius would be rolling in his grave. in the same way, pressuring pastors to be knowledgeable and to prove everything they say with scripture leads to grabbing at straws and using verses out-of-context to seemingly support a point. thereby, popular misconceptions are perpetuated through miscommunication. don't be afraid to say "i don't know"! the image of christians as pompous fakes is because they purport to have an infinite existance and infinite knowledge completely figured out and the answer is "everything you've figured out so far is wrong and i'm right." as a culmination of the previous five topics, i believe any person should be able to "teach" by honestly saying what they're dealing with and how God is with them through it, or how they've seen God in any of their life circumstances whether good or bad, or how they're scared that God doesn't exist, or any of an infinte number of ways that we can encounter God once we shed man-made religion. it can't be overstated how psychologically unhealthy it is to repress your fears instead of being honest about what you're feeling.
6. lovelovelovelovelove
- i can't stress it enough. neither could jesus. everything i hate about christianity is due to a lack of love. just CALM DOWN and look at the people you're dealing with. they're people. you know, those things created by God, from dust, just like you. we are scared dirt people who are running around trying our hardest with everything we've got to find the One Thing we were created for, and it hurts to be separated from Him, so we are going to do some weird things. you still have to love. no matter what.