Who is the Church?

Anybody who tells you that love is easy has probably never really loved. Relationships never quite go the way we expect. Loving makes us vulnerable, opens us to hurt, reveals our areas of weakness. So it is with other people, and so it is with the church.

The next part of this story is about my development as a leader and my perspective on the church that came out of that process. It is also about the fruit of what may be the most dangerous prayer I have ever prayed: I asked God to make me humble. Let anyone who fears that God does not answer prayer take notice of my life: when we ask God to move in ways that are according to His will, there are radical results. But what comes of those prayers are not always what we expect.

About a year and a half after I became involved with house churches in DCF, I decided to start a new house church in my home. It seemed like a logical step - the house church I was part of had begun meeting in smaller groups several times a month, and I was already leading one of those groups in my home. After a period of consideration and preparation, that small group decided to officially become our own house church.

I honestly can't remember a lot of the details of that time, but there are a number of impressions that have remained with me. I can remember the sense of insufficiency that I felt. I can remember the struggles I had with adequately preparing each week. I can remember all of these shortcoming being covered up by God's love within the group, especially as it was lived out by one particular person. I saw firsthand how the gift of love is greater than any number of other gifts that we might bring to a community.

Life is ever changing, and the individual that so embodied God's love within our group had to move away. When she left, there was a tremendous vacuum. While she had never been officially named a "leader," she certainly brought gifts that I did not have. In many ways she was the glue that held our group together. After her departure, a burden fell upon my shoulders that I could not bear. Because I couldn't find anyone else to take her place, the group eventually folded back into the larger house church.

I don't know if I recognized it at the time, but I think I was pretty shaken by this experience. The pride that I had begun to feel in myself and my abilities as a leader came crashing down, and that was a painful, painful process. But I wouldn't trade this time for anything. My trust in myself was shaken, but my love for the church became even more deeply rooted. Looking back, a lot of my beliefs about the church are founded on what I experienced during this time.

My ecclesiology was forever shaped by the recognition that a member of our group embodied God's love particularly well. While all of us are called to allow love to permeate everything we do, there are those for whom it is a particularly dominating theme. At the same time, I looked around and saw others who made visible God's grace or God's truth. This changed my view of spiritual gifts - I believe that they are not merely things we do, but also who we are. When the people of God gather together, we more adequately reflect the nature of God than any of us can do while apart. This is for our own benefit; it allows us to understand and worship God more completely. It is also for the benefit of the world. The Church should be the most visible representation of God on Earth.

Now hear me carefully - this is not a disguised pantheism or a veiled attempt to say that we are God or gods. It is the Holy Spirit dwelling within us that allows us to reflect God's character. Nor are we a perfect picture of who He is. I believe there are aspects of God that can never be reflected or comprehended by humankind. But the Bible talks of Christ as the head of the Church, and even uses the marriage language of Christ being united with the Church as one flesh. Throughout the gospels, the activity of Christ is constantly pointing to who He is. (For instance, in Mark 1 the exorcisms and healings of Christ point to His true authority and status as the unique Son of God.) So it is with the Church. The activity - the visible expression of spiritual gifts - is pointing to a deeper truth about who we are.

In my mind, this changes everything. It changes the nature of our meetings, because each person must use their gifts to reflect who God has already made them to be. It changes how we lead - no one man or woman can adequately express the full character of God, nor should any leader seek to force everyone under their care to be exactly like his or herself. It changes how we worship. We must carry with us the humble recognition that we need the Church to come to the fullest possible understanding of who God is. It changes our vision of the future. When we imagine people from every tribe, tongue, and nation gathered before the throne of God in worship, we acknowledge that God's purpose for the Church will not be realized until every man and woman He has called is among that assembly.

I don't think this idea stops at the local level, either. When we look at the various communities of God's people gathered throughout the nation and the globe, each one has a unique character. If what I believe is true, then it is only by looking at the gathering of God's people across the globe and throughout history that we see the fullest picture of who the Church is supposed to be.

One important caveat comes with this perspective. Just because I emphasize a particular aspect of God's character when I am living out of who I am does not mean that I am off the hook in other areas of my life. Every person is still called to love. Every person is still called to be truthful. Every person is still called to live a life of justice. But if a distinct emphasis emerges, that's okay. I can live true to that, and still recognize the value of those who are different than myself but still true to who God has called them to be.

I had intended to continue to talk about the consequences of my prayer for humility and what that has meant for my life in particular, but this post is long enough as it is. The rest of the story shall wait for the next entry. In the meantime, I'd love to hear what you think about what I've written here. I'm just beginning to commit these ideas to writing, and I'm sure there are places I have not expressed what I am thinking well. It is likely, too, that there are holes in my theology that haven't come immediately to mind. Please, share your thoughts - part of the reason for putting this in writing is the opportunity to refine what I believe and how I present it.

Snowy Sunset

Snowy Sunset, originally uploaded by Jeromie.

Worth Getting Up For

The morning sun works to free
Blades of grass from their icy prison.
Made captive overnight,
Now they wait for freedom
And one last chance
For adding brilliant green
To a landscape filled with blood-red leaves
That mark the coming winter.

A witness to this struggle,
My awe hangs in the air
Frozen, like my breath
By the beauty that surrounds me.

Falling in love

Picture, if you will, a small warehouse next to the highway in a little South Carolina town. A swing hangs from the big oak near the front door, and a large grassy hill sits behind it and patiently holds back the local lake. Inside, the warehouse holds, not stacks of boxes or reams of paper, but rows of brown-painted folding metal chairs. A few dozen people are gathered expectantly. Something is about to happen. Change is in the air.

On that late summer evening in 2002, the elders of Downtown Community Fellowship, a small church predominantly made up of college students that met in a warehouse across the highway from the local university campus, announced the end of the church's popular night service. Instead, DCF was being re-imagined as a "church of house churches." It was a bold move, a decision arrived at only after much prayer, and it changed my life.

I can remember the excitement I felt as the elders explained their vision. As soon as they were done sharing, I approached one of the elders, Chad Clarkson, and asked how I could be involved. Very soon, I was attending one of the newly formed house churches that met in his home. That fall, my senior year in college, was incredible. I learned firsthand about the transformative power of community, the joy of sharing life with my brothers and sisters in Christ, and the beauty of individuals using their unique gifts for the benefit of the Body. Like a young man who suddenly realizes that the girl he has grown up with all his life is now (and has really always been) a stunning beauty, I fell in love with the Church.

As a natural outpouring of that love, I began to serve my house church and the DCF body in any way I could. That eventually drew the attention of the elders and deacons, and sometime toward the end of the next spring I was invited to join the deacons as an "official" servant of the church. The only problem: I was about to graduate, and I had no intention of staying in Clemson, SC. But true love (and a complete lack of interesting jobs) can lead to some crazy decisions, and I decided to accept a research assistantship at Clemson and stick around for another two years.

Once again, this was a decision that would change my life. It was during this time that I took my first steps as a leader in the church. My ideas on leadership come primarily from the successes and failures that I and those around me experienced. My theology, too, was formed in the midst of community. Any knowledge I gained from books or scripture was filtered through the church that surrounded me.

This story only sets the stage for what is to come, but it is still important. The "big" ideas that I will expound on later make the most sense when placed in their proper context. Most importantly, as I begin to speak of the Church you must always remember that I love her. I don't just love the idea of the Church or who she could become; I love her now, despite her shortcomings. I love her dearly, deeply, and with all my heart.

First Snow

First Snow, originally uploaded by Jeromie.

Seeds

On Thursday morning, I sat across from my mentor, Tom, in a small café near downtown Littleton. Part of Denver Seminary's curriculum involves a mentoring component, and each semester we write "learning contracts," a self-authored syllabus that focuses on a single character trait and/or skill. This fall I'm supposed to be working on living out an attitude of thanksgiving and doing a better job at managing my finances, but spiritual development rarely fits into nice little boxes. Consequently, our conversations often range across a wide range of topics. It helps that I'm quite a talker, especially after a couple cups of coffee.

This morning was no different. As is pretty customary after a caffeine kickstart, the conversation wandered towards my favorite topic, the Church. It was a pretty fitting topic for a mentoring conversation, since one of the things I've been working out is who I am as a leader and how that fits into my picture of the Church. Some pieces are finally starting to slide in place, and the way I've regarded the church in the last few years is starting to have a real impact on my development as a leader.

Midway through our conversation, Tom stopped me with a question.

"Have you written this down?"

"Well, no."

Bits and pieces of my thoughts have made it into papers, and I'm sure some has snuck out on this blog. But most of my ideas have simply been shared in conversation with friends. The spoken word provides rich soil for ideas to grow, but eventually it's probably a good idea to transplant them into the written word. Different environments allow for different kinds of growth.

So, over the next few days/weeks/unspecified period of time, I'm going to be sharing my ideas on leadership and the Church. But I'm going to start with a story. My story.

Life and Death

Life and Death, originally uploaded by Jeromie.