Dear Editor,
I read a recent blog entry ( http://weblogs.oxegen.us/lifestream/archive/2005/01/21/6161.aspx ) that reflected my thoughts about your recent article "The Church—Why Bother" by Tim Stafford ( http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/001/26.42.html).
I wanted you to know that I am one of those believers Wayne Jacobsen mentioned in this blog article who have discovered an incredible life among the church of Jesus Christ outside the walls of the institution that Mr. Stafford championed in his article.
I am a 39 year old believer from Garden Grove, California who has been a believer for 30 years. I grew up in the institutional church. In the past I have served as a Sunday school teacher, a small group leader, a deacon, a pastor/elder and have lead a monthly jail ministry. But I found that the structured mechanical services and programs of the institutional church were not able to allow the life of Jesus to grow and move as it should in my life or the lives of others around me.
My family and I left the attendance of a structured religious organization in order to find a deeper relationship with the Lord and other believers, not to get away from these elements of the Christian life. It was not a lack of desire for the Lord that drove me from the religious organizational church, it was a desire to know Him better and live out His Life. Tim Stafford's assumption that the institutions of the religious organizations he terms 'the church' are the only and best way for a Christian to grow, is simply not true. I have found connections to the true Church outside the walls of the organizations and meetings of man and see now why Jesus described us as a "wind" to Nicodemus ( John 3 ). We are a living breathing church that is not constrained by a model or definition. We demonstrate the power and movement of the Spirit of God without a label that can be placed on us.
Since leaving the schedule of our local church we have found more and deeper relationships than we ever had in the religious Christian organizational church we had been a part of for the previous 10 years. We have come to understand more things about the teachings of scripture (which used to be constrained to a definition built on our assumptions about what the 'church' was). Granted, it does come down to one's desire to pursue God personally. Simply not attending 'services' and not seeking to pursue God personally will never get one there... But I have found connections to numerous of people who were starving to death spiritually in the institutional church. They left the meetings and the structure behind to seek new live among the church that exists outside of these structures. They left to grow in their Christian walk. Not to abandon it.
I do not condemn or disparage those who still find their connection to God in the intuitional style church structures... As a child I grew up in such a place, but I have found that being a part of such an organization does not make one better connected to the Body of Christ any more than being in a garage makes one a car. And I don't see where Jesus told us to build the garage anyway.
Saturday, January 22, 2005
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3 comments:
Your honesty is appreciated. but this letter should really be addressed to God, not CT. Don't you think?
I've read Wayne's letter and a few others, and I read line after line of justification for not being a part of a local church congregation. Sure, the churches that people have been unhappy with are those that are more strict and those that don't fully understand what it means to run a church according to God's direction and wisdom.
There are a lot of bad churches out there, and yes, I would think that not going to a church at all would be better than attending a bad church that doesn't breathe life into its congregation each week. If you don't look forward to going to a particular church, don't blame the church as a whole, just blame that church and find a better one.
I've been a part of horrible excuses for churches, and some great ones that were times I looked forward to attending all week.
This whole letter-writing plan is now taking time away from the work that CT should be doing to make sure their next issue will be top-of-the-line. Otherwise, because their time was wasted on reading letter after letter for the sake of blaming CT for this article, you will have forced the lower level of publishing that you'll be writing about next.
Let's make our time valuable to the Lord, and not just with our first reaction to be a part of something bigger than ourselves (this letter-writing campaign) just because you aren't a part of something bigger than yourselves on Sunday morning.
This has precious little to do with 'being a part of something bigger' simply because I am not a part of a 'church organization on Sunday Morning'.
What I am simply saying is that the writer of the CT article took Barna's word for it that people leaving the church were disgruntled with the system and walked away from their faith. This is not so. I wrote my letter to simply say that there are many people like me who left the instituional church not to escape God or escape the church... but rather to find a deeper realtionship with God and a more authentic relationship with the church (other believers - whether they ar a part of a local religious organization, or not).
If CT can't spend time rethinking that... and it will cause harm to the quality of their future articles... then maybe they are not cut out for the journalism world. What do you mean I can't spend time writing a critique of their article? Isn't that what freedom of speech and journalism is all about?
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