The title of this synchroblog, What Would Jesus Do With The Church, causes me to respond with some degree of “fear and trembling.” These are two sacrosanct entities, Jesus and the church. As I thought about how Jesus might respond to what the church has become, three words immediately came to mind: judgment, encouragement, and transformation. I will try to address each of those in three different posts this week.

Pharisees
In thinking about how Jesus would respond to the church of today, I couldn’t help but think about how he responded to the expressions of Judaism of his day. In either case, we are talking about those who say they are God’s people. Of course, his most unfavorable, unflattering, scathing remarks were for those who regarded themselves as the most righteous and as the keepers and teachers of God’s Word. Their zeal for the things of God become twisted into a zeal for their interpretations, practices, and their sect and they became arrogant and aloof.

Church
I wonder if Jesus were bodily present here and now and was inclined to be rather directive as he was in the first century… well, I wonder, if he wouldn’t let we religionists have it with both barrels blazing.

I wonder if he wouldn’t say tear down those stupid signs in front of your buildings, they make it look like I have multiple personalities. Stop putting up little cutesy sayings that make me look stupid and shallow.

I wonder if he wouldn’t say stop building temples, that’s so Old Testament. You know that I live in you and among you; I don’t need a temple other than that. Since you already have these buildings, do something with them that shows people who I am; turn them into community centers. You know, you really must get away from this idea that my purpose for you is just to invite people to your services and to tell them facts about me, I want you to start showing them who I am! Besides responding to people as I would in your daily life, I also want you to be involved in my kingdom together, in community with one another. Become whatever the people in your area need and think of on-going ways to show them what I think of them. You churches in impoverished areas of the world with your gold plated doors, rip it off, sell it, and do something that really honors me with that money. You churches with your high tech theaters, find lots of uses for that stuff that is truly about the kingdom or sell it off. Put your building in use 24/7.

I wonder if he wouldn’t say to church leaders, stop being so smug. You vision and my vision may be at odds with each other. Get out of the office. Listen to people. Serve me by serving people, rather than an organization. Stop running after every new thing that comes out of the mega churches; find my will for you and your community. Quick trying to so slick and systematized, working with people is intensive and messy. Denominational leaders, your office needs to become the greenhouse for finding meaningful ways to display my kingdom, rather than building your own. You can become the experimenters on the cutting edge of kingdom work.

Problems
Judgment usually doesn’t change things in the short term; rather it tends to cause people to become more entrenched and defensive. It also has the tendency to get those prophetic types who pronounce it, killed. Not being Jesus, it can be tricky getting the judgment thing right. Judgment gets messy. Just look at all of the confusion, infighting, and ego- clashing in the Christian world alone. It seems like each leader is sure that he is more right than the others.

Me
I can really fling it out there, when it comes to judgment. I think Christians are doing a lot of unloving and stupid things and I can get real ticked off about that. Throughout the Bible there are all of these warning about judgment: Use the same standard for yourself that you use for others. Judge yourself first. Be compassionate toward someone who has fallen.

There is a place for prophet types who fling out some judgment, but not outside of the above parameters. It seems to me that if one is critical, he should offer an alternative, i.e., light a candle, rather than just curse the darkness.

Personally, I think I need to get over it. I need to let the painful wounds heal, by doing something about it. I need to get off by butt and serve people more like I write about in this blog. I think I need to get together a community for people who feel shut out by church and want to be a beautiful display of God’s Kingdom. I have been trying and, honestly, I don’t have much knowledge yet about the “how” part, but this is my new focus.

Sometimes, it is something real simple. Saturday, I was working out in the yard and saw a new neighbor two houses away working on a fence. I confess was feeling pretty beat up by people and was real, real tired of being mostly unemployed. I almost didn’t walk down the street to talk to him, but did. It’s a small start.

WWJDWTC Participants:

Erin Word
Gary Means
Alan Knox
The Refuge
Nate Peres
Sally Coleman
Barb
Rick Stillwell
Jeff Greathouse
Dan
Barbara Legere
Jonathan Brink
Jason Ellis