Celebrating Un-Church

As I write, I realise it is Sunday morning, the time most Christians are puttering off to church. Needless to say I won't be going. Many ask me why. I find very few can really understand. It actually seems kind of sad when I try to explain, and the people can't see past what they think is the truth to see a bigger picture.

So I try to use analogies, but usually they don't go real far. People just can't see. They can't see that 'going' to church isn't even a biblical concept. They can't see that 'going' to a building has very little to do with being the church, yet it serves very well to inoculate people from seeing God and relationship with Him in a bigger picture. It puts boundaries on a limitless God.

Usually all I get is questions outwardly, and criticism inwardly. They usually won't say it, but the question in their mind is whether I am a real Christian or not. In their mind I show the obvious signs of back sliding and definitely think in a heretical way. The narrow mindedness is uncanny. And the judgment! I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It has been the Christian way for centuries.

Yet how do I share with them the freedom I have found? How do I explain how much bigger God looks out here and how much more alive my faith is? How do I show them a freedom and vibrancy they don't want to see because it isn't packaged in a way that is familiar to them? What's funny is that many would rather I 'went to church' - and are far more concerned about my big box attendance than they are about the 'vividly alive faith' I have found. They would quickly sacrifice my joy for more obedience to a false religious behavior (Christians HAVE to go to church).

I love it out here. Worship isn't boxed up to 20 minutes of 'praise' music on Sunday morning. Spending time with God isn't packaged into a 15 minute devotion time. My learning about God isn't limited to whatever offering some guy behind a pulpit might make. There isn't anything between me and Papa. It is about our relationship. And the barriers that brought structure to my earlier faith aren't prison walls to my growth now. Leaving the institutional church has pulled the stops out of my relationship with Him, and entered me into a wild and crazy adventure that is new around every corner. It is alive and dynamic and scary and unpredictable and fresh and challenging and - well, maybe the best word is that out here it is 'wilderness'. A wilderness of living on the edge of life, terrified and yet more alive spiritually than I have ever felt in my 26 years with Him.

So why would I want to go back to something scripted out each week - something planned to fit into an hour and a half? Why would I want to go to a building where - at best- I walk out feeling centered and ready for the next week? Ready for the next week means that I am in charge of my life, on top of things - and if I am, than Jesus isn't. Let's face it - the gathering on Sunday is ultimately about me. As much as we try to make it about Him, it isn't. We go to feel better, so we can feel His presence, so we can enjoy.

How about an adventure that isn't quite so safe? Anybody out there willing to come alive again? I'm not saying that only happens outside the four walls of the conventional church. I am saying that there is an essential attitude shift that needs to happen in all of us - inside and outside the walls. One where we are willing to go where He leads, rather than one that is packaged up for us in predictable patterns of religious function.