Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Traditional Church?

I'm feeling without hope these last few months in the idea of church being anything more than an organizational structure that assaults true intimacy and honest relationships. My experience of church is that it is a perfectionistic machine that must be maintained OR ELSE. It should be a family where everyone has a place, and where the vision that guides it is big enough for multiple levels of process.

Those who are broken always end up paying the highest price of this kind of church, as they easily fall through the cracks (more like gaping holes) or are encouraged to try harder to keep up. If they can't keep up, too bad, they need to find someplace (a more manageable machine).

I have hope in Jesus, but I don't know about the church.



Powered by ScribeFire.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So sorry to hear of your struggle with Church. But the Church was not created for you to "experience", but to participate in the worship of God in Truth. It not how we feel when we walk out that is the measure of our time there, but what we put into it while we are there. St. Paul warned of ear tickling remember, so it is not about our experience during worship, but about our worship itself.

I love Mass, because there I express my love for the true Christ, and I receive him in his Body, Blood Soul and Divinity that can only be found in the Eucharist. I don't get the warm fuzzies because God interacts with me, but I experience Joy because I have received Him and have true life then within me!! Oh Joy indescribable!

Scott said...

Thanks for replying! I agree with you that the true measure of a church (or "the church") is not my experience of it, but it is significant nonetheless.

Paul's vision in Ephesians 4 and elsewhere is of a body fitting together, each part doing its share (there is no liturgical hierarchy in my view, except for Christ being head over the church). If each part is to have a place and do its share there must be a big enough vision for each part. I think that is part of what I was describing here.