Everything is Church
28 Jun 2005
I was having a conversation with Fredrik, when I was in Sweden, about the growing popularity, of making ‘private god spaces’, of being post church, and making church something about not being church.
In this expression, we see a reaction to the idea that the church has so often seen sundays as the only valid space for God to be. In this paradigm, sundays are church, and the kingdom, only the sunday service is church.
So now we regale the congregation, and sundays, and see church as when I play golf, go shopping, play football. In this paradigm everything is church, and I don’t need church anymore, I’m post church.
But in the old model where nothing is church, surely it’s so restrictive that we have to say no! and find God elsewhere? And in the second model, where everything is church, then ultimately nothing is church, a kind of pantheistic ecclessiology.
A church that does not naturally lead to people connecting to God, in the places they work, and play, and live, isn’t church at all. Conversely when church becomes just the place where I chose to connect with people who do just what I want, like football, I have stopped being church, just as completely.
In the reaction to church being so disconnected from the world, we think we are being radical by moving church outside of church, but we can end up not being church at all.
So where do I see church? What about the football guy, who finds God in his football sundays, and the water-skiing woman, who finds her time with God there. When they get together and ask, how are we going to talk about our faith, how are we going to celebrate christianity together – I hate football and you can’t water ski – how are we going to connect together outside of our own exclusive narrow spheres of interest…then they get to start being church.
If sundays was all about me, jesus as my girlfriend worship, my blessing, my needs, lets not be fooled and think that church on my terms, on my interests, with fewer people is anything better, or different, it’s just the modern church on steroids, hyper modern church.
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Comment by DangerMouse
9.35 am on 28 Jun 2005
Stupid web broweser… contact details added…
Comment by DangerMouse
9.36 am on 28 Jun 2005
“…it’s just the modern church on steroids, hyper modern church.” – according to the Gospel of Jason… … I am hearing your perspective loud and clear… again…
I do agree with you if the extremes you present were reality… ;o)
But maybe it’s not that extreme…
Borrowing from Prodigal Kiwi’s recent post on architecture ( http://prodigal.typepad.com/prodigal_kiwi/2005/06/new_science_new.html) may I reframe the issue?
What if we view it in term of constructing a cathedral? What, would you say, happens when the architects are designing spaces for their own glory and abusing the resources of the builders? Is it surprising that the builders leave? Is it fair to criticise a builder for being unable to design a cathedral? What if they can only manage a shack? The architects in the tradition I’ve spent most time in – Charasmatic Evangelical – wield a lot of power and appear to be largely unware of the effect they have on people’s lives. As Dallas Willard says “Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you are getting”. The builders are leaving. Why?
“Conversely when church becomes just the place where I chose to connect with people who do just what I want” – what about when I release my time from being with people who don’t challenge me on a Sunday morning or mid week and connect with people who do challenge me?
The issue of engaging only with similarly specialised people is one of life not just of church – we all need the Otherness of our Others to help us grow. The question then becomes what inputs do I need in my life in order to be all that I am created to be and to do all that I am created to do. Maybe the church is a mechanism and not the end? Attending to my needs is the only way I can be or do anything. The attended life is the biggest gift you can give – to yourself, to others, to God.
And isn’t interpreting people’s focus of looking to meet their needs as hedonistic selfishness agreeing to engage the wrong argument? The challenge to apparent hedonism is surely not to say that church is the answer but acknowledgement of the indivuation imperitive of our souls (a la Jung) or heeding the blueprint that God formed in our souls (a la Psalm 139). Maybe honouring God’s creation is our highest acheivement and we fall short of the glory of it unless we conciously engage. Church can presumably help or hinder.
And of course this all comes through the lens of church being there to enable people to be and do all they are meant to be and do. Equiping the saints. LOL or maybe in today’s world coaching the saints? Yet another modern perspective maybe?
Provoking thoughts…
DangerMouse
Comment by Steve
5.42 pm on 28 Jun 2005
Thanks Jason for these much needed thoughts! I have been thinking about this today as my churchs’ attendance is horrible in the summer. When I run into members in town they tell me of how busy there are and the many trips they have been on, the many personal projects there are pursuing. One woman today expressed surprise when I recognized her because it had been so long since she had been to church.
Her comment portrayed the bigger issue for me. Church attendance isn’t the issue. Gather together in community, with others, with people who are different from us is the issue. How can we love our neighbor as our self (remember how Jesus defined neighbor) if we aren’t around long enough to connect?
Comment by TimButt
6.26 pm on 28 Jun 2005
I need to plough through the other comments and reread your post a few more times to develop thoughts of any depth. But at first reading, lyrics from Faithless came to mind, so I thought I’d put them down before I lose them and try to concoct something that sounds bit more intellectual!:
‘This is my church.
This is where I heal my hurts.
It’s a natural grace
Of watching young life shape
It’s in minor keys
Solutions and remedies
Enemies becoming friends
When bitterness ends.
This is my church.
For tonight, God is a DJ.’
Now let me explain this abstract(!)
Maxi Jazz captures some of that community aspect that we understand is at the heart of the biblical take on that much abused term ‘fellowship’. But setting his lyrics in the context of a club and placing God as the DJ, he also captures something of that sense of gathering to worship and being led in that (as we would understand the Holy Spirit leads us into worshipping in the way that God would have us worship Him). Also related to the picture of God as DJ, there’s the thought of sounds and rhythms being offered into the mix and blended into a seamless sound.
So here’s an example of a ’spiritual space’ being identified that is both personal and private (engaging all the senses and provoking a response) but yet very much corporate.
I fear I just might be missing the thrust of what you were trying to say. But the club as an example of church outside the realm of Sunday seems to come through in this example.
Comment by timsamoff
6.45 pm on 28 Jun 2005
I’m dealing with this sort of internal dialog now myself… In fact, Joe Myers talked a bit about it in his “Sacred Spaces” lecture at WALP.
One of my questions centers around how to communicate the “church is everywhere” ideal to those that place too much emphasis on “church is in the building.” I feel like people are missing out when the don’t find the scared outside of church. (But, maybe it’s just me.)
Secondly, I wonder how to communicate the necessity of communion with others inside of a traditional church structure… Sometimes we do need to be somewhere that’s a little against our “own” will, no?
True, gathering for gathering’s sake is good. And we should always strive to love those who are different from us. But, I think it only begins with understanding that God can be in football and water skiing. After that, we must realize that God desires us to commune for His sake — sometimes outside of our comfort zones and our desires.
I’m rambling now… Communicating these issues is difficult when we have so many years of the “the only place church is is where we go on Sundays” mentality built up within us.
Comment by Dan
8.07 pm on 28 Jun 2005
Kind of reminds me of a church sign that read: “Staying in bed and shouting, ‘Oh God’ does not constitute going to church.” ;)
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