I Love the Church

My heart has always been captivated by God’s vision for the Church. I find it very compelling and attractional when I experience glimpses and outbreaks of what He intended within a fellowship of believers. I love God’s dream for her and there’s nothing like it on earth when she is working as He designed. But I am not just in love with the idea, I love her even when she is messed up, misdirected and functioning below her potential. Oh, I was repulsed early in my faith walk by the realities of her blemishes, her inconsistencies, her petty self-absorption, and the ugliness of her treatment of people but now I can honestly say, I love the Church. You see, I must. She is the Bride of Christ. It would be absurd to think that I can love Him and not love His bride. And besides, if my nature and heart are being transformed into His then so must my perceptions, attitudes and passions for her.

I’ve always been a student of the Church but in the last five years I’ve had the opportunity to visit a large number of the churches from the mid-west to the Bible belt and from foreign lands to right here on the Western Slope of Colorado. And I am firmly convinced that there is no “right way” to do church and there no “one way” to be the church. Part of her beauty and mystery is her great diversity. The reality is we need lots of flavors of churches to reach an increasingly diverse culture.

I chuckle at those who want the church to go back to the good old days. Like the church of today has lost something. The problem is they don’t know church history. They know their history. They know when their heart was on fire and their relationship with Christ was a daily reality. But the Church is always changing because culture is always evolving. Not that all change has been or will be good, but simply that change is a necessary reality. That ability to change with the times and to contextualize the message and the method is part of the reason for the Church’s great resiliency through the centuries. Kings, nations, generations come and go but the Church remains. It’s the only only human institution that has eternity built into it.

The Church is one of the great mysteries of God. It’s amazing to me and the implications of God’s vision are simply mind-blowing:

That He would include us as active participants in His grand redemptive mission to His creation.
That He would intentionally preview His coming Kingdom to the world through His church.
That He would choose to work through the Church as His primary human agency.
That He would entrust us with His message and commission us to proclaim it to the nations.
That He would minister His grace and power to a lost and needy world through His Church.
That He would not just adopt us individually as sons and daughters but then also love us collectively as His Bride.

I love the Church and our world, our nation, our community desperately needs us to be the Church!