My Country Club
I've been having a fair amount of conversations with a good friend of mine from college about the church in which he serves in Texas. It's an ethnic church that has a generation of parents for whom English is not their dominant language, and a second generation of kids, some of whom are old enough that they have kids themselves. It is certainly not spiritually dead by any stretch of the imagination -- worship is vibrant, the community looks out for one another, and membership is going up and not down.
And yet there is tension, which my friend vents to me when we talk. Tension that signals to me that this church could go in one of two directions: forward or backward. The core members of this congregation have been there long enough for their kids to have kids, and while they are not outwardly inflexible or reactionary, they show signs of settling into a rut. They would be the first to tell you that church is not meant to be a country club, and yet their body language informs my friend that what they're thinking inside is, " . . . but this church is my country club." It's a comfort zone, as another friend of mine put it, "where everybody knows your name." There is a familiarity -- the same people sitting in the same pews, the status of being in the inner circle from a leadership and social standpoint, the good feeling of being an active and busy member -- that people are loath to have shaken from them.
But there's some shaking going on. My friend is part of a group that is seeking to push the church's focus outward -- mercy ministries and diversifying the ethnic mix of Sunday attendees and supporting people in their influence to their circles outside the church. As a result, there are a lot more new faces on Sunday morning, as newcomers are invited in; and a lot less old faces at other sanctioned church activities, as my friend and others are opting out of the church's picnics and covered-dish suppers to do the same things with their unchurched friends. And so you add to the natural language barrier and generation gap these opposing understandings of what the church is to be. For one group, it's a place where you're bound by shared beliefs and a shared sense of looking out for one another. For another group, it's a place where you're bound by a common mission to look and reach outward, which may lead to associating with people who don't share your beliefs and who might not look out for you.
The church as described in the book of Acts was ever bring pushed outward by the Holy Spirit. In fact, just as this motley assemblage of pilgrims to Jerusalem are starting to get comfortable in their meetings and in their sharing of possessions, a wave of persecution impels those not originally from Jerusalem outward, where, like seeds blown by the wind to pollinate new places, they witness to the things they've seen and believed.
We deal with enough chaos in our lives. The world is a mean place, our jobs put more and more pressure on us, and many of us deal with dysfunction from our families and/or our pasts and/or our own poor decisions and bad behaviors and nagging addictions. It is easy to look to our churches as our country club, our place where everybody knows our name, our comfort zone of familiarity and stability and serenity. Certainly, church -- even as a human institution -- can and should be a place where we can be ourselves, where we can count on others, where we can laugh when others laugh and weep when others weep, where we can together celebrate life and marriage and baptism and mourn death and loss and suffering.
But church is first and foremost a divine institution that is bound by a common mission: to look upward and outward, to do acts of mercy and to befriend the lost and to be salt and light in a bland and dim world. In my opinion, my friend has been prayerful and humble in his effort to influence his church in Texas. He has instigated without being offensive, he prods but also listens, and wants God's will for the church and not just his own way to prevail. He prefers unity and reconciliation and the respecting of those older and wiser and more experienced than he. But he knows that the Bible is all too clear about what God thinks of "country club" Christians, and like a prophet calling out to what ought to be, he seeks to shake those who don't want to be shaken but most need to be shaken. I pray for him and his church, for my own church, for all churches, that we won't just assent to a head knowledge of what church should be but examine our own hearts for ways we seek a security there that shouldn't be sought.
And yet there is tension, which my friend vents to me when we talk. Tension that signals to me that this church could go in one of two directions: forward or backward. The core members of this congregation have been there long enough for their kids to have kids, and while they are not outwardly inflexible or reactionary, they show signs of settling into a rut. They would be the first to tell you that church is not meant to be a country club, and yet their body language informs my friend that what they're thinking inside is, " . . . but this church is my country club." It's a comfort zone, as another friend of mine put it, "where everybody knows your name." There is a familiarity -- the same people sitting in the same pews, the status of being in the inner circle from a leadership and social standpoint, the good feeling of being an active and busy member -- that people are loath to have shaken from them.
But there's some shaking going on. My friend is part of a group that is seeking to push the church's focus outward -- mercy ministries and diversifying the ethnic mix of Sunday attendees and supporting people in their influence to their circles outside the church. As a result, there are a lot more new faces on Sunday morning, as newcomers are invited in; and a lot less old faces at other sanctioned church activities, as my friend and others are opting out of the church's picnics and covered-dish suppers to do the same things with their unchurched friends. And so you add to the natural language barrier and generation gap these opposing understandings of what the church is to be. For one group, it's a place where you're bound by shared beliefs and a shared sense of looking out for one another. For another group, it's a place where you're bound by a common mission to look and reach outward, which may lead to associating with people who don't share your beliefs and who might not look out for you.
The church as described in the book of Acts was ever bring pushed outward by the Holy Spirit. In fact, just as this motley assemblage of pilgrims to Jerusalem are starting to get comfortable in their meetings and in their sharing of possessions, a wave of persecution impels those not originally from Jerusalem outward, where, like seeds blown by the wind to pollinate new places, they witness to the things they've seen and believed.
We deal with enough chaos in our lives. The world is a mean place, our jobs put more and more pressure on us, and many of us deal with dysfunction from our families and/or our pasts and/or our own poor decisions and bad behaviors and nagging addictions. It is easy to look to our churches as our country club, our place where everybody knows our name, our comfort zone of familiarity and stability and serenity. Certainly, church -- even as a human institution -- can and should be a place where we can be ourselves, where we can count on others, where we can laugh when others laugh and weep when others weep, where we can together celebrate life and marriage and baptism and mourn death and loss and suffering.
But church is first and foremost a divine institution that is bound by a common mission: to look upward and outward, to do acts of mercy and to befriend the lost and to be salt and light in a bland and dim world. In my opinion, my friend has been prayerful and humble in his effort to influence his church in Texas. He has instigated without being offensive, he prods but also listens, and wants God's will for the church and not just his own way to prevail. He prefers unity and reconciliation and the respecting of those older and wiser and more experienced than he. But he knows that the Bible is all too clear about what God thinks of "country club" Christians, and like a prophet calling out to what ought to be, he seeks to shake those who don't want to be shaken but most need to be shaken. I pray for him and his church, for my own church, for all churches, that we won't just assent to a head knowledge of what church should be but examine our own hearts for ways we seek a security there that shouldn't be sought.
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