My Ugly/Beautiful Whore/Mother Church
Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 11:44AM I'm thrilled to present this guest post by my friend Caleb Neff. Part of the fun of being a Baby Boomer is being schooled by guys in their mid-twenties, like Caleb. He's the real deal.
I like The Bachelor. I know it’s shallow and awful, but I can’t stop. I even went on Hulu last week to catch part of an episode I missed. Now that I confessed it, can I throw someone under the bus? I started watching the Bachelor because my wife likes it. At first I would pretend to be reading or playing guitar, but eventually I just gave in.
When you love someone, you grow to love what they love. Ephesians 5:25 says: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
We often make a big deal about how Jesus loves individuals, which is really important and true. But in the Bible, those individuals are called together as His church, the bride he died for and is coming back for. Jesus deeply loves the church. He is passionately committed to the church. When Jesus talks about the church his voice goes up a notch, his pulse beats faster and there are tears and fire in his eyes--just like when you are sharing about whatever is closest to your heart.
This is why my brain misfires a bit when someone says to me, “I love Jesus, I just don’t care for the church.” They launch into all their issues and frustrations, which are all really valid, but I sit there thinking, “How could I truly love my wife, and at the same time be totally against and actually filled with disgust for the thing that she loves the most?” That would be some kind of dysfunctional relationship.
Sunday after our last service ended I stood at the front of the building surveying “the wreckage:” people still getting prayer over here, people laughing over there, kids running around, people in our welcome center getting connected in groups, new friendships being made, one person who had just made a first time commitment to Christ received her first Bible. My eyes started to well up with tears. I just couldn’t stop thinking, “Jesus loves this stuff.” Really. Not just in the cliché way that we think about him loving kitty-cats. I think he chest-bumps angels when someone gets over their fear and walks through the doors for the first time, or when someone nervously signs up for their first small group.
I’ll be the first to tell you that the church has weaknesses. We have some awful flaws. But when I think of Augustine’s quote, “the church is a whore, and it is my mother,” I think many, many people only see the whore. They look at this whore/church and feel the justification to do what the religious leaders in John 8 would’ve wanted to do to the woman caught in adultery: judge her, stone her, and then (feeling very righteous indeed) wipe the dust of their feet on her dead body. All of this in front of an adoring public. These same people want to create a “real” church, one “filled with the grace and love of God.”
It reminds me of that movie The Village, where some really intelligent people think they are going to escape the brokenness of modern society by setting up an autonomous collective in the woods and living without technology. The problem is, evil doesn’t come from “out there.” Evil comes from within our hearts. As they say in AA: “wherever you go, there you are.” You can’t slam the door quickly enough or run far or fast enough to get away from your own heart. G.K. Chesterton once wrote an award-winning essay in response to the prompt, “What’s wrong with the world today?” He simply responded, “I am.”
That’s the lesson the people in The Village had to learn, and it’s the lesson many Christians need to learn: stop throwing stones. You’re the problem. I’m the problem. We’re all equally broken. If by some miracle you found the perfect church out there, you’d ruin it by attending. Stop trying to create The Village of an emerging church, a house church, or whatever the next hot trend will be.
I mean to say this as lovingly as I can: grow up. Look in the mirror. You have flaws too, and they’re hideous. Most of us have no problem with the fact that God keeps loving us, even though we are big arrogant jerks that keep making the same mistakes, but if the church we attend screws up once, we’re out of there.
I’m not advocating staying in a church that is manipulative and off track, but there are actually very few of those. Mostly what you’ll find is groups of people that love Jesus passionately but are weak, broken hypocrites (like you). Find a church like that and dive in headfirst. A big part of the reason that you keep looking for an awesomely hip church is that you are insecure, like a high school kid looking for a cool group of people to associate with, to help you feel cool.
I’m not saying the church isn’t a whore. I’m saying we should start by asking Jesus how He feels about her. We should follow that up by looking in the mirror and asking if the problem isn’t that the same things that annoy us most about others isn’t the same things we ourselves struggle with. Finally, I’m suggesting that if you stop beating on the church for a minute and start serving her, if you kneel down in a moment of humility and wipe off her bloody, broken face, you might see your mom.
Caleb Neff is an associate pastor, worship leader, and mistake maker at the Vineyard Community Church in Cape Coral, Florida. www.capevineyard.com
Monday's Meditation: His Fresh Mercy
Monday, March 14, 2011 at 10:40AM
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
~ Lamentations 3: 22-23
Is there anything quite like the aroma of baking bread? Without overpowering the house it permeates the air with an invitation to come and eat. If you were lucky enough to grow up in a home that celebrates each morning with fresh biscuits, you woke up to the scent of goodness in the morning.
Perhaps because I’ve never met a carbohydrate I didn’t like, or perhaps because God served fresh biscuits to the people of Israel in the desert wilderness every morning for forty years, I’ve come to expect the smell of his goodness every morning. I’ve begun to train myself to discover his lovingkindness day by day.
Hidden midway through suffering poems of lament is the revelation of God’s constant and faithful provision for each one of us. In part, the lesson of these verses calls us to look for his mercies daily, to sniff them out, because regardless of our circumstances he is present and overflowing with mercy. If the weeping poet of Lamentations became convinced of God’s daily mercies can we not discover the same?
We were made to eat fresh bread. We do not have to live off of aging mercy. Who would be satisfied to breakfast upon biscuits three days old, or those frozen and served a month later? No. The Heavenly Father is a better parent than that. Amazingly, the poet of Lamentations suggested that even when life is at its most difficult stages, we can be assured of God’s constant and daily care.
What if we determined to discover the reality of this revelation? What if each day were a hunt to discover the mercies which he prepared this morning? What if Monday’s Meditation is not simply a good idea, but the grace to restore our senses, heal our eyes and enable us to see his goodness? What if we engaged in the discipline of searching out and identifying his fresh mercy?
This week’s meditation is could be more than a meditation. If we choose, it can move us to daily action, to search for--and discover--the gifts he has placed in our path. Where will you discover the table he has set today?
A Home Worthy of Return
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 11:39AM 
It’s one thing to call the prodigals home. It’s quite another to have a home worth returning to.
Monday’s Meditation highlighted Christian prodigals, people who love Jesus but live far from home. They have taken the family inheritance and squandered it on travels in Christendom; left their family in search of something else and live as if their family is dead. In the comments on Monday's post more than one person observed that “home” may not be what Jesus portrayed in his parable:
When you've been harmed by men pursuing their own agenda, it's easy and natural to be skeptical of all church institutions. It becomes hard not to, when it's happened more than once.
It’s a fair question: What if we return home to a place ruled not by the Father, but by older brothers filled with judgment or manipulation?
Another friend texted me to ask what if work or marriage or life have brought about a change of location, and the new landscape is barren and cold? What if you left home for all the right reasons and there is no family of faith healthy enough to adopt a mature son:
My previous church feels like home and everything in my new city feels like a maternity ward.
He has a point: so many Evangelical churches focus on the new birth to exclusion of worship, community or spiritual formation. What happens if you’ve eaten at a healthy table only to find bread and water at the next?
Still another friend observed that the restless heart of the prodigal needs a transplant:
Christians drifters will never find that perfect church, so they are going to stay just long enough until the newness wears off and they see a few flaws, then it's off to some new church that seems more exciting and more spiritual.
Reminds me of Bonhoeffer: "Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial."
And when you quote D-Bon, it’s the last word, right? Well, no, actually. These friends and others have only opened the conversation.
Students of Jesus is about spiritual formation. It’s about each of us developing the kind of relationship with the Master that leads to rest and peace. It’s about taking the yoke of discipleship. I’ve tried to avoid criticisms of the church at large because I have no voice or control over the church at large. Besides, church-bashing is so fun and easy it requires no particular insight or revelation. Anyone can do it. Still, it’s true that our personal spiritual formation is not complete apart from the community God intended--the church.
Yet each of my friends have pointed out that telling Christian prodigals to go home is not enough. How can we address the deep need for true community of the Spirit when there are churches devoid of such life? How can we hold the Christian prodigal accountable for their own hearts when some have left home out of self-preservation? Can one small blog-post answer the deepest needs of both individual souls and corporate churches?
Today we can only point in the right direction, suggest the possibilities and open ourselves to dialogue with one another and the Spirit.
To those who have been wounded by the church I would point toward the Lord Jesus. The testimony of John reminds us, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” (John 1:11) It’s not news that religious houses may be the places most in need of his presence. If we return home with a Christlike character we will be welcomed by some and abused by others. A modern truth: when we return the Father may not be waiting inside the building at all. The older brother may have taken over or--worse--the farm may have failed altogether. In these cases our calling to return may be especially difficult and sacrificial; we will take our place among those Jesus calls “blessed” in the beatitudes.
To those who are searching for a new home I would point toward the journey of Abraham. The father of faith “was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrew 11:10) He had seen the blueprint and was searching for where the architect and builder was at work. The benefit of a growing up in a healthy home is that we will not settle for a poor substitute. Our past becomes the blueprint for the future. There is a difference between running from home and looking for a new one: Dr. Tolkien reminds us that “not all who wander are lost.”
To those who see the fatal flaw in human idealism I would point toward the power of the call. Jesus understood that the very offer to “Come and see” can change lives. There was no shortage of idealists in Jesus day. He welcomed those with high ideals and tempered them with down-to-earth teaching about birds, flowers, foxes, wheat and tares. When his disciples believed fire from heaven was the answer he demonstrated the wisdom and true power that flows from keeping after the Father’s business. We can explain there is often a disparity between the builder’s plans and the worker’s craftsmanship. We can help them realize that a thoughtful pastor understands that much of his work may in fact be wood, hay, and stubble.
These are merely fingers in the wind. How should we speak to the Christian prodigal? How can our actions and counsel make a place for those who believe they have no place? There’s no shortage of comment when describing the problem--I hope for twice the comments as we explore together the solutions.
Monday's Meditation: Do You Need to Go Home?
Monday, March 7, 2011 at 11:35AM 
Sometimes I’m tempted to tell them, “Go home.”
Our local church sees plenty of visitors each week: some never come back, others stay a while, and a few adopt our community as their community. What troubles me is the large percentage of prodigals I meet. Not prodigals in the obvious sense--the “sinners” returning to the Heavenly Father after a few years of raising hell. Those prodigals I would welcome with feasting, robes and a ring.
In my years as a pastor I’ve learned to recognize another kind of prodigal: the Christian prodigal. The Christian prodigal loves Jesus but lives far from home. He has taken the family inheritance and squandered it on travels in Christendom. He has left his family in search of something else. He lives as if his family is dead.
North American Evangelicals share a passion for the new birth, and why not? It comes directly from the words of Jesus, “You must be born again.” Yet so many children of God live the rest of their lives in Christ as if there is no such thing as a spiritual family. If we are born again, shouldn’t the metaphor extend to the nurture and maturing of each new son and daughter?
Some prodigals come to our church simply to find a quiet place to rest. Others prodigals come because they are angry with those at home, so they worship somewhere else. Still other prodigals come because they have dreams of living large in the Kingdom of God: large ministry, excitement, and a big name. They want to make their mark in God’s world. They act as if their destiny is divorced from their place of birth. They act as if the Father has a plan for them but somehow He doesn’t have a place for them. They think they must make their own way in God’s world.
Each Sunday I stand at the door and scan the horizon. I’m looking for our prodigals to come home. I’m looking to comfort and encourage the prodigals who have another home but have forgotten their inheritance.
Today’s post is still a meditation for the week:
- Am I a Christian Prodigal?
- Do I live as if I have no home in Christ?
- Have I wished my family dead and sought a far horizon on my own?
If these answers are yes, I want to tell you: “Go home.”
The True Story
Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 11:49AM 
There is truth so small it can fit on a bumper sticker, but for my money give me a big story.
We thought Titanic was long at three hours until the Lord of the Rings trilogy weighed in at more than nine hours--but I want more. I need a story big as all creation, one that opens me up to eternity.
Of course, there is a story like that. When the word of God was first breathed out, the Spirit told us a story. Why, then, do we insist on treating the story like a book of law? We have missed the fact that nearly all of the Scripture comes to us as either narrative or poetry. It’s God’s truth, and he chose to reveal the truth by telling stories and singing songs. Why aren’t God’s people the singers and storytellers of our age?
Each generation is born with eternity in their hearts, imaginations capable of capturing the wind, voices eager to sing along with the Creator. But recent generations have been taught neither to sing nor to listen, but to distill God’s creative energy into systematic theology. Yet in my Bible the letters of Paul number 84 pages while the Psalms of Israel number 140 pages and 150 melodies--and that’s just the Psalms!
Consider the Old Testament: the story of God begins when he bends down and shapes humanity from the clay of the earth and kisses them with the breath of life. He made us in his image and walked with us day by day. The story continues through Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It’s one story, and it’s a story of divine unrelenting love. Nor does it stop in Genesis: the Old Testament narrative continues all the way to Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. One story, many characters, one Lover. Then the poets take over and lay down the soundtrack for the story, followed by the prophets, who--like the bonus features on a DVD--provide the Director’s commentary on all that has gone before. Who could treat the Old Testament as a legal textbook? To do so would be embrace religion while rejecting the Author of the story.
What we call the New Testament provides the most creative shock in history--the Author writes Himself into the story and reveals the full extent of his love. Yet he is not finished: just when we marvel at the climax of the tale, the Author turns his attention to we who are listening to the story and invites us to help write the coming chapters. And indeed, they are still being written. Finally, when it seems like nothing more can be said, the Spirit breaks into an apocalyptic stream of consciousness that seems never-ending. In fact it actually is never-ending: we discover we have only read the prologue. The Author invites us to feast at his house and help with the volumes to come.
Why didn’t someone teach me the Bible as God’s story? I like stories.
Some will mistakenly think I care nothing for truth. My real point is that God has chosen to share his truth in ways that go beyond precept and principle. God has chosen to share his heart, and if we capture his heart we will live in his truth. The truest things I know first took root in my heart and later changed my thinking. The transformations of my lifetime did not come from having a “Christian worldview,” but from the breath of God breathed into my imagination. The motion of his Spirit caused me to believe I could become what he planned for me all along.
I don’t want to read the Bible just so I can go to the head of the class. I want to go home with the Writer, the Singer, the Sculptor, and learn to create the way he creates. It turns out his studio is pretty big. He wouldn’t have told me so unless it were true.