Becoming Unchurch

Has it ever struck you how much the church has turned into the same kind of thing that Israel and the Jewish faith were during Jesus' time? Like them, we have taken the good news of liberation and blessing by God, and we have built around it a scaffolding of rules, a structure of conformity, and walls of tradition.

We are called the children of God and the body of Christ. We are to be led by the Spirit. We are supposed to be known by our love for each other. We are supposed to be a people saved from sin, transformed by grace, and alive to God, yet we continually trap our individual and communal lives in the same kind of institutions without giving it a second thought.

Church

In too many ways, we have become what we should not be. Over the past 2,000 years we have transformed good news into rules, helpful practices into traditions, and put braces on perfectly healthy legs. Too often we don't run the good race with joy; instead we plod along feeling empty but acting like we are full.

This is nothing new. It is human nature to change things, to reshape them so we can better understand them, to build systems so we can better see the whole structure and understand the parts, to codify that which is living and become more interested in the classification system than the thing it studies.

You can read about horses until you know everything about them, but until you have experienced horse, it's just theory.

You can read about God until you know everything about him, but until you have experienced God, it's just an empty shell of religion and theology. We can debate the mysteries of faith and wrap our minds around the tiniest details of religion, but knowledge is not saving faith.

Religion can be a pretender, church can be a panacea, Christianity can be a worldview that blinds us to the truth. "Knowledge puffs up," as the apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 8:1. The prophet Isaiah says:

The Lord says, "These people worship me with their mouths and honor me with their lips. But their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is [based on] rules made by humans." (Isaiah 29:13, God's Word)

Unleashed

Jesus called God's people away from a life of rules and complacency to a new life of love, grace, peace, and power.

Two thousand years ago, his words addressed the Jews. Today, they speak to the church. He is calling us out of the man-made structures of denominations and congregations and theologies and traditions; he calling us into a world that doesn't know him - a world that sees Christians as hypocrites, the church as an institution of control, and God, if they acknowledge that he exists, as an uncaring or malign deity who brings cancer on children and disasters on nations.

We need to stop playing at church while the world - including many within the institutional church - is going to hell. We need to break down the walls of tradition, dismantle the scaffolding of the law, and stop limiting the gospel of God's love by the box we put it in. We need to be in the world walking by grace, living in love, and led by the Spirit.

Unchurch

We need to become unchurch.

I don't know exactly what that entails. It doesn't mean tossing out all of our theologies and traditions. There's a lot of good there.

It does mean putting them in perspective. Our theologies and traditions should never define us; they should serve the gospel, not reshape it. That has happened far too often. If they were not good to some extent, we never would have held on to them.

Jesus understood the value of enduring truths: "Every teacher of religious law who becomes a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a homeowner who brings from his storeroom new gems of truth as well as old." (Matthew 13:53, NLT) For those alive to God, theologies and traditions take on new meaning.

Becoming unchurch doesn't mean becoming unchurched; it means becoming the kind of Christian who lives as a disciple and ambassador when gathered with other believers and when outside of religious settings. It means being conformed to Christ and living in the world while no longer being of the world.

Broken

By birth and though our environment, we are broken creatures. We don't know our purpose in life, and our first instinct is to take care of ourselves - to cry when we're hungry or need a fresh diaper as babies, to draw attention to ourselves or away from ourselves in social settings as we grow up, to control that which threatens us as much as we can, and to seek happiness, however we define it.

We are by nature selfish creatures. We think that we know best what is best for us. And that is exactly the thing that got us into trouble in Eden, when Eve agreed with the deceiver that the one thing God withheld from us - knowledge of good and evil - would make her wise (Genesis 3:5-6). Our selfish desires remain the biggest obstacle to having a right relationship with God.

Selfish Theologies

Christians have been guilty of using self-interest to promote the gospel when we assume that the whole point of religion is avoiding hell and getting to heaven. It's something we often do without a second thought.

Here are some examples:

• If there is no god, you lose nothing eternal by believing. If there is a god, you gain eternity after this life.
• Hell is a really nasty place where God will send you for breaking even one of his rules. If you don't want to spend eternity there, you'd better put your faith in Jesus.
• Just say the words "Jesus is Lord", and you will be saved.

The problem isn't that these are lies or that they are only partial truths. The problem is that they place you at the center of things, as though time and eternity were made for you, as though getting into heaven is the goal of this life, as though your eternal happiness is the most important thing.

Purpose

God had a plan in eternity. He would craft a universe, our sun, and our planet (Genesis 1:1). He would populate it with an amazing variety of creatures. He would form a being in his own image - one with reason, creative thought, hopes, and the ability to say No.

The question this experiment was meant to answer: Can those who turned their back on their creator be made whole? How can those who rebelled against God be brought into a right relationship with him?

Pride, ego, and selfishness brought rebellion in heaven, and the leader of that action in turn broke our relationship with our maker at the start of human history by appealing to Eve's desire for wisdom. If selfish desire made this mess, we should never believe that it's also going to make things right.

That is why I am going to do something completely amazing for these people once again. The wisdom of their wise people will disappear. The intelligence of their intelligent people will be hidden. (Isaiah 29:14, God's Word)

Unlike the fallen angels, who were created perfect and chose rebellion, since the days of Adam we are born into sin. It's the air we breath. It's part of us. It's the one thing that separates us from God - and the one thing he wants to extract from us. But he doesn't force that on us; he wants us to choose to love and worship him for who he is, not because he can give us we want.

The Heart of the Gospel

We were made to know and worship God, the one who planned us and made us and knows everything about us and still loves us. He loved us before he made us, and he wants to break through our selfishness so we can experience the freedom of his love.

How much does God love us? Enough to take care of Adam and Eve after they chose sin. Enough to save Noah and his family from disaster. Enough to visit Abraham as a man. Enough to give Joseph the wisdom to understand dreams and save two nations. Enough to speak to his people through prophets, calling them away from their selfish ways.

How much does God love us? Enough to take on flesh and live among his chosen nation 2,000 years ago. Enough to teach us about the kingdom of God. Enough to die an excruciating and unjust death even though he had never sinned. Enough to break the power of sin and begin to make all things new.

How much does God love us? Enough to die in our place. Enough to dwell within his people. Enough to draw sinners to himself. Enough to transform murders and thieves and abusers and anyone else into children of the light. Enough to heal our brokenness. Enough to speak to us and accept our worship as his greatest treasure.

For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Our Calling

God asks one simple - but not easy - thing of us: That we trust him. That we know he loves us, forgives us when we repent, and has a plan for this life and the next. That we believe in the one who showed us love through his death. That we live as though nothing is more important to us than making God smile.

It's not easy. We have had our trust betrayed so many time in so many ways that it's hard to believe that anyone - especially the God who knows our every failing - is trustworthy. We have been wounded so many ways that we find it hard to believe that God won't turn against us if we don't obey every last law. We are so broken that we have a hard time conceiving of any other way of living.

Healing

Because God knows and loves us, the biggest thing he can do is show us that our trust in him is not misplaced. He is trustworthy. We can count on his love. We can know that his plan for us is good, even when things seem to disprove that. God is dependable, reliant, safe. He is our comfort and joy. He is our security.

We come to God and freely acknowledge our failings so we can be free from the power of sin. We find integrity when we abandon pretense and honestly approach our loving Father. We find healing when God smiles at us.

We are called to bask in God's smile continuously, to walk in this world trusting his plan, to share with others how God has broken through our pride and selfishness in the hope that they will accept the same freedom so freely given.

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

God loves everyone and desires that everyone turn to him. But how will they know if we don't share the truth that burns within us? How will they know if we only surround ourselves with other believers? How will they know if we don't share the story of what God has done in our lives with those who need his healing?

It's important to spend one-on-one time with God. It's important to talk with him and listen for his voice. It's important to worship him alone and with others. It's important to meet together and encourage each other in the faith.

Becoming Unchurch

But it's most important that we share the hope within us with those who need it. They're not likely to come to our churches and Bible studies; we need to meet them where they are. We need to stop living like Sunday morning worship is the important thing.

God has liberated us from the stranglehold of selfishness and blessed us with new life because he loves us and wants to restore us.

Imagine finding a '57 Chevy rusting in a field and restoring it to its original form.

The world is full of rusty old cars, lives in need of rehabilitation. We need to see them out there in the fields and junkyards rather than drive past with our car stereos and iPods blaring Christian music. We need to let them know that they don't have to sit and rust, that God is looking for cars to restore.

That's a big part of becoming unchurch - touching lives with our stories so they can have their own stories of restoration. The goal isn't getting them to say the sinner's prayer or come to church; the goal is new lives made from old, brokenness and selfishness transformed into wholeness and love.

We can express that in our personal devotions, our Bible studies, and our church services, but it means the most when we share it with those who don't yet have a story of how God changed their lives.

That's why we need to become unchurch, so we can reach the world with God's transforming love.

Addendum

I should make it clear that I am writing as someone who grew up in the church - mostly here in Grand Rapids, Michigan - and loves the church. The problem is that organizations tend to develop a club mentality, making the club the focus rather than the club's mission. I'm sure there are lots of healthy churches out there successfully helping their members focus on the mission of seeing lives transformed by God's love, both within and outside of the church.

The important thing isn't our style of worship, our organizational structure, our budget, or our programs. The important thing is remembering what God has done in us and sharing that with each other and the world to draw all nearer to God.