The church and the Gospel

I’ve been thinking about this since church Sunday, the difference between people who go to church and people who are the church. I know this this has been talked, wrote, and debated about to death but there’s something about sitting in church that makes me rethink the idea of church.

Here are some of the things that crossed my mind:

How do we get people to quite thinking about church as something you do and instead as something you are? Is there a way? Because honestly I’d rather be surrounded by 10 people who are passionately in love with Jesus and proclaiming His Gospel and encouraging me to do likewise, then with 300 who are just there because church is what you “do” on Sundays and our church building has the most comfortable chairs to take a nap in in the area.

What’s with our fascination with numbers and programs? We say that they don’t matter but we seem so reluctant to let them go. I know some programs are necessary (like training and discipleship for example) but do we really need something every night of the week? How are people supposed to build relationships and live the Gospel with world around them if we keep them busy all the time? Or what if they have the time to do those things but we’re not actively, publicly, encouraging them too pursue that course of action?

We admit that church is messy, but then act like it’s not. What’s the point in having people meet together in groups (small groups, community groups, cell groups, whatever catch phrase your church has attached to it) if real, raw, honest, communication isn’t happening? If we can’t admit we’re jacked up sinners still very much in need of the Gospel ourselves to each other how are we ever going to get our people to be that honest with unbelievers? The Gospel message will not be attractive at all to the world around us if the people who are trying to live/share it are pretending to be something they’re aren’t. Namely, perfect.

Granted there are more things that could go here, and this is a bit of a personal rant that should be taken with a grain of salt, but I think there are plenty of us who sit in a building on Sunday and from time to time wonder “how did we get here? Is this really the best we can do?”