The Church


I love big beautiful church buildings. The intricate architecture, the sense of touching history, the mystery of how it relates to the Divine. But, what I don't like is when Christians confuse a church with the Church. I don't care what denomination you belong to, whether you go to church or not, if you find your hope and source in Jesus, you are the Church. We need to move the Church beyond the walls of our treasured edifice and move into the world to seek those that Jesus loves. He has no special love for me as a good girl. He didn't hang out with the church people in His day. He hung out with the ones who needed Him most-the world of sinners-the broken, the battered, the lost, the outcasts, the misfits, the lowlifes. If I am hanging out just with people in my Church, tho I love them, I am not sure I am doing what Jesus wants me to do. If He is the vine and we are the branches, shouldn't we grow the same plant as His? Why would I expect an orange tree to grow from a branch on a rose bush? The gates of Hell will not destroy the Church, but is that the organization or the organism, the institution or the group of Jesus' followers?
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I certainly don't know all the answers, but I know lots of questions. And when I ask the questions of my own life, it is not easy to sit with the answers. Still, I confess my shortcomings and ask that God will have mercy on me and help me, as He told me He would. Maybe someday I will come up with the right answer, His answer.

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