A mile in my shoes

I had a conversation the other day with a friend of mine about some church-type things. She made an interesting comment, and it was something like, “Ah, I hate it when I can’t go to MY church… It makes me feel like I’m wearing somebody else’s shoes.”

This might get a little confusing (because I’m going to share my thoughts, and those usually are confusing), but I had two reactions to this. The first was my initial reaction; the second didn’t happen until hours later. I’m going to try to share both.

First, I thought this made sooo much sense. I hear it said all the time – indeed, I say it myself a lot – that Church is more than a building and a Sunday morning service. We, as Christians, are the Church. So it comes as no surprise to me that she would feel that way. I feel that way too, and I’m guessing we aren’t the only ones.

Church is about community. It’s about fellowship. Of course it’s about Jesus (as I would hope most churches are), but if you look at the first church in Acts, we see that it’s really about a lot more than that, though Christ is certainly at the center. Look at this bit in Acts 2-

“They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.”

These people praised Jesus, but there was more going on. They impacted their communities, and they just simply lived life together. I think we get a small taste of that in our churches. What we experience on Sundays isn’t about the building or anything like that, otherwise we would feel at home no matter what church we go to. It’s more about the people we worship with. Church is community.

So, that was my first thought, and I certainly think that’s true. But then this question came to my mind, “Should that really matter?”

The Church (Big “C”), after all, is the Body of Christ. So if our churches (little “c”) are truly just extensions of that Body, shouldn’t I feel at home no matter where I go on a Sunday?

Maybe not. The bigger the group of people, the more difficult it is to form meaningful relationships. But I still haven’t been able to shake that question. I look at just the city of Fort Wayne and I see so many people who call themselves Christians (me being one of them). I see a ton of churches. Why don’t I see a lot of unity?

What’s the answer? If we stick with the shoe analogy, my guess is most of us probably wouldn’t agree that church is a “one-size-fits-all” kind of deal (how ironic). So what do we do? Thoughts?

The melody of unity

I looked up worship in the dictionary, simply out of curiosity. They define it as this: “The reverent love and devotion accorded a deity, and the ceremonies, prayers or other religious forms by which this love is expressed.” I think they’re close. I would expand it a bit. I’ve always thought of worship as simply the means by which we attempt to give glory to God. Simple, yes. But why complicate things that don’t need to be so complicated? At least for right now. Maybe some other day I’ll share in detail my thoughts on worship. Not today. However, I will make one point here, and it’s one that was ironically just made by Korban Miller just a few days ago at church: worship is not limited to music. Yes, music is an avenue of worship. But it’s not the only one. To say that music is the only way to worship is like saying the only way to get to IPFW is to start from my house and go down Coliseum. That’s ridiculous. We all live in different houses, why do we all have to take the same road? As long as we get there, isn’t that what matters? The analogy is feeble, but the thought is still there. We all come from different places and work in different ways. Music doesn’t resonate with everyone, but it would be foolish to say that those people can’t worship. Rant over.

That being said, I do want to focus on music for now. I played electric guitar for Arise last night, which is like this mini-conference thing our high school youth group puts on for the girls. Now, it’s really hard to hear anything when you have electric guitar in the speaker right next to you and the drums right next to that, but when those died out last night, I got to experience first hand the unique beauty that music has to offer.

Music, unlike a lot of things, forces unity. There are written words that are meant to said in a certain tone, in a certain rhythm. Now, I’m guessing that not every girl there has this amazing, phenomenal voice. But when a large group of people sings together, the sharps and flats seem to cancel each other out so it sounds like one, strong, amazing voice (plus they were all girls and girls just have better voices. It’s true). It was a blessing I won’t soon forget.

Hebrews 13:15- “…let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.”