Church, we need to talk...

Church,

We all need to talk, for the sake of community - for the sake of the one thing that unites us all as the Church.  All families have their struggles, all families fight and some times a few moments of silence and separation are a good thing but I fear that we've gone too far.

In fact, I know we've gone too far for I don't have to look very far to see the division and hate we have developed for each other.  

Yes, hate.

We go after each other in a manner that it is no wonder individuals want nothing to do with our communities any more.  We have forgotten what is suppose to unite us.

Some of you say 'I understand my faith through thinkers and pastors like John Piper and the Neo-Reformed,' or 'I have been given a language to my faith I never knew I shared through people like Rachel Held Evans and Greg Boyd,' or 'I have found a richness in the historical liturgy found in the mainline traditions that has breathed new life into my faith,' or 'I just found a connection and faith in a church that simply attempts to dive into the Bible.'

To all of these I say Amen.

Each of these are good and individually we need them, but corporately we must not allow them to divide us.   In some mysterious way, God's Spirit connected with us and moved us.  We could not deny It's pursuit. We saw somehow in the person of Christ: the perfect love, hope, grace, salvation, and restoration for us and for the world.  And we responded and were baptized into this eclectic family of God.

Yet again in this digital age, spurred by a video, a blog post, or some social event we turn harshly against ourselves or anyone who does not hold our conviction.   Then when an unbelieving world speaks of us, what do they say? That we are gracious and welcoming to each other or that we divide over things like theories of atonement, what the future might look like, or maybe what it looks like to follow Christ?

None of these seem to be stating what first drew us.  Was it a well articulated doctrine or practice? Was it logic? Was it a prayer? No, it was through this mysterious and provocative grace that was given by God, in Christ to us. Christ is what we share. Christ is what moved towards us.

Let us remember, however we try to explain it to each other will in the end sound foolish. Because it is absurd. That is the Good News, that is the Gospel, that in spite of our feeble attempts, Christ still moves in this.

Let us never forget the grace we have been freely given because of that reality and let us share it to one another. (A modern take on what Paul might have wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 - 3:1-9)