That Which I Can't Handle.

I love church books. There, I said it. Call me a geek, weirdo, whatever. I can't quit my fascination with the dialogue on church: the postmodern church, emerging church, missional church, re-doing church...blah blah. It's fascinating.

"Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community" by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis is the current read. The great part about this book, is that I get to do it for work. That's right, its work. (Although, many of you are probably not jealous).

Ok, let's get into the good stuff.

We need to be communities of love. And we need to be seen to be
communities of love. People need to encounter the church as a network of
relationships rather than a meeting you attend or a place you enter.

...said simple enough. Why is it so hard for church leaders to imagine or formulate a community that simply lives life together? Why does there have to be a church service? Why does the church have to be big? Why do we need a big stage, big sounds, and big words?

Maybe so that we are not forced to reply--or better yet, so that we are unable to reply.

I know that "loving your neighbor as yourself" does not simply refer to the person in the house/apartment next door. It refers to each person that you meet and encounter in your life.

Or does it? Have we so departed from the literal translation of neighbor that we no longer pay attention to our actual, physical neighbors?

Why must one drive 30 minutes, an hour even to participate in their community of faith? What is the advantage of gathering every christian in the county, pulling them in to one central location. What then with the rest of the county? Forsaken? Neglected? Ignored?

How do you reach the county when you've pulled every believer out of the county and called them to a central location? Does that invite people?

One of my favorite studies in my undergrad involved the concept of Christian hospitality. In Living the Hospitality of God by Lucien Richard:

The word hospitality, taken in a broad sense, expresses the
willingness to share not only our possessions but that which, in some sense, is
ours in a private and personal sense, our home...

...as Henri Nouwen affirms, 'The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to
create an emptiness, not a fearful emtpiness, but a friendly emptiness where
strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their
own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave
and follow their own vocations.'

Now, it's getting late so my thought process is slowing down, but bear with me as I bring these scattered thoughts to a close. There is an uncanny parallel between the concept of Christian hospitality and the missional church. Instead of spelling out my own connections tonight (since I reached the dreaded stroke of 10:00pm when my brain turns to jelly), I want to invite you few readers to engage.

As I close out, I want to refer back to my introduction. "I love church books." I consider this a great weakness. If I had spent as much time practicing these books as I did reading this, God would have used me to make a dent on His church, I am sure of it.