My friend Kathy Escobar wrote an insightful post recently about her understanding of church.
Here is some of what she wrote:
the part that makes me sad, though, is that as a culture how little we value alternative forms of church–and not just unique worship services.
there are an awful lot of ways to grow, be challenged, and practice loving God, others, ourselves. in fact, God’s awfully creative like that–showing up in all kinds of unexpected, ordinary, wild, beautiful places that have nothing to do with organized religion.
yeah, small dinner parties are church.
time with dear friends laughing & eating & sharing life is church.
online connections where we gather hope & are challenged is church.
intense theology conversations at the pub is church.
sharing burdens with colleagues at work is church.
offering cups of cold water to thirsty friends on the street is church.
recovery meetings are church.
neighborhood potlucks are church.
regular worship services are church (as long as you talk to someone, ha ha).a whole long list of ways that people gather & find hope & share love are church.
to me, the only for-sure ingredient of “church” is people–beautiful, weird, flawed human beings, some how, some way, gathering with other people, in the midst of the reality of God, giving & receiving love and hope.
I love this! Thank you, Kathy, for inspiring us to practice church in ways that look ever more like Jesus.
Go here to read the rest of Kathy’s post.
Jeremy, I love this line of thought, but there are aspects of it that worry me. Returning “church” to its proper place in the lexicon — as something that we are rather than something we do or the place where we do it — is all to the good. Being the church at the pub over Guinness and Calvin, at the kitchen table with a crying neighbor and a cup of tea, picking up trash at the park…that’s all lovely stuff.
Here’s what concerns me. That big gathering, customarily on Sunday morning, is not simply a historical accident. Being the church gathered in praise before the throne of God, on earth as it is in heaven, is godly and biblical, and Our People have done it from time out of mind for a reason. In these lexicon-stretching conversations, I feel like that gets lost, and the worship service is treated as an oddity that really has nothing to do with church. It’s an integral part.
Makes me want to write the book of Hebrews all over again, and title it “The Epistle of Tim to the Missional.”