Cruciformity

I’ve been struggling a bit with wording and structure and ritual in my life lately. Part of me is comfortable with the established status quo that has been my religious life up until this point. Most of me is repulsed by it.

Yesterday I came across several posts that all seem to hit on this very issue. This whole idea that we have reduced our faith to a weekly gathering. And before anyone freaks and gives the obvious "Sunday School" answer, I know that lots of christians do more than just show up on Sunday. BUT… the way we structure our services, programs, bulletins, etc… certainly give the impression that what is important is Sunday and that our role is to attend.

The People formerly known as the Congregation

The first thing I stumbled across was this piece by Bill Kninnon.

Let me introduce you to The People formerly known as The Congregation. There are millions of us.

We are people - flesh and blood - image bearers of the Creator - eikons, if you will. We are not numbers.

We are the eikons who once sat in the uncomfortable pews or plush theatre seating of your preaching venues. We sat passively while you proof-texted your way through 3, 4, 5 or no point sermons - attempting to tell us how you and your reading of The Bible had a plan for our lives.

Wow… He starts the whole thing off with a quote from a similar piece that talks about people no longer being just the audience but also content creators. And of course, the implication is that we are not just the audience in church, either, but capable and responsible to BE the church.

Not Just Sunday

Scott Williams hit next with two quick posts about Sunday Morning Worship being a barrier to Spiritual growth (1) (2).

Dallas Willard, author of books about Christian spiritual formation, writes, "We must flatly say that one of the greatest contemporary barriers to meaningful spiritual formation in Christlikeness is overconfidence in the spiritual efficacy of ‘regular church services,’ of whatever kind they may be. Though they are vital, they are not enough. It is that simple."

PodCAMP

Jon Swanson actually hit this one pretty well this morning, but yesterday Chris Brogan had a piece about the Spirit of PodCamp. PodCamp is an unConference on New Media. One of their core values is that the conference is the attendees. Therefore…

Forget EVERYTHING you read that makes you think otherwise. All PodCamps, EVERY PodCamp is your event. There are people working their heads off to organize this for you, to help make all the pieces line up. They’re missing sleep. They’re not getting paid. They are begging, borrowing, and reaching out in every direction to make this happen. But don’t you think for a minute that YOU aren’t the center of the event.

But just like Spider-Man, “with great power comes great responsibility.� Every spilled drink is YOUR job to pick up. Every lost soul in a hallway is YOUR duty to bring to the right place. Every session that runs a little late is because YOU and the participants let it go late (which isn’t nice to the next, incoming session). You create and control everything.

Jon said this, this morning…

So I started thinking about church. Too often, when people talk about the church, as in, “that’s awful, the church should do something about that�, what is meant is, “the paid staff should do something about that.� But the more I am reading and thinking and praying these days, I am increasingly concerned that if we are depending on the paid staff to be the church, then at least one church of which I am part of the paid staff is in trouble.

I can’t be the church. I don’t want to be the church. We’d be a really bad and limited and boring and ineffective and unbalanced organism if I was the church. Just like a PodCamp, EVERYONE is the church.

The church is not the staff, the institution, the treasurer, or even the volunteers. Ultimately, of course, it is bigger even than just one congregation, but for the sake of this discussion lets talk about just one congregation. The church is everyone who shows up. One of the things PodCamp stresses is that the nobody who hasn’t started yet is just as important and valuable as the A-list problogger.

So What Should It Look Like?

I have no idea. I’ve got glimpses and I am developing some core values kind of lists. I am getting a better idea of what I think needs to be there and what might be optional.

Lately, my life has felt like church 24/7 and "church" has felt pretty routine. (This past Sunday being an exception, but I was only there for one service and God used the scripture passage to speak to me in a way that was totally not what the Sermon was about).

Any thoughts? Any Insights? I’m still struggling along this path, knowing that God is leading and He has a plan, but completely uncertain of what that might be.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 6th, 2007 at 9:48 am and is filed under emerging church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.