But what I miss most is deep relationship. My increasing ideal is some very small group, just a handful of people, meet together, go through the Bible together and study, eat together. I don't really need much beyond actual fellowship from Christians. I don't care about programs, I'll happily sing with out-of-tune worshipers over the more polished performances, I don't need gimmicks. I think the fact that I don't need much or want much is surprising to many.
This round of church hunting (the first was when we left California, came to Maryland, and settled at Hope Bible Church, Columbia -- and after 8 years left) has proved very long and difficult, particularly because we left HBC with such discomfort and disillusionment, and because honestly I think I stayed at HBC for a small number of reasons and endured a lack of growth and true fellowship that basically left me feeling starved but unwilling to leave. Until problems in the church emerged that were impossible to ignore.
Granted, we shouldn't be in the business of critiquing churches. We are called to be part of the Church and who can raise a charge about God's elect? However, when choosing which subset of Christ's Church to associate with and serve alongside, we are necessarily put in a spot of discriminating. Or else, why not just stay at the first church we see? It seems much of the onus of critiquing a church leads you ultimately to the thinking that would conclude we should see no differences in churches so long as they are theologically correct. Pick the first girl you see, marry her, and stick with her no matter what happens. That's wrong. And no one really acts that way. We select carefully, hoping to minimize difficulty later and amplify our service and efforts for God's work.
It's something a friend, a new friend that I'm coming to trust, said to me when I spoke about the rough patch to him about HBC, that "you should want to go to church", not in that my current lack of desire was wrong, but that it indicated a deeper problem in the relationship with church. Meeting with people ought to be enough of a joy and help that you want to do it, not driven exclusively by obligation or guilt. I've kept that, and adjusted my standard, because I'd stayed years at Hope, principally for obligation. Which isn't much different from how I grew up, thinking that sitting weekly, miserably in a pew was some good sacrifice for God, where at a handful of points in my life, I have felt the presence of God in church, I have wanted to go, I have felt matured, grown, transformed by relationship with those people. I just forget that this should be a standard in finding a group: that God is prominently elevated, and Scripture left to speak for himself, and a community of believers mutually uplifting one-another.
We need to look for substance, and the disheartening thing is continually looking, rarely finding and slowly expecting to compromise believing that you pick the best of what's out there, rather than prioritize true Christian substance.
Outside of HBC, the following posts are what we found (omitting the names outright but leaving acronyms.)
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