Keeping it Simple at church

Life can get complex, but it doesn't have to.  Everyone is walking around looking at their phones (watch out for me because I am sometimes looking at my phone while walking), avoiding eye-contact and voice contact with the real people.  We all want to appear busy because "busy," after all, is the value of this culture.  Busy makes me appear important, sought after and even important.

Some people are actually busy--squeezing tons and tons of productivity into every day.  They can bring home the bacon and fry it in a pan (confession:  I don't know what that means.)  But most people are not busy at all.  We waste time on everything from blogging to reading blogs (a little dig at me and you).  What are we busy doing?  Going through the Starbuck's drive through and carting kids around town to music lessons and soccer practice does not exactly equate to "productive."  We might be better off with a home brew and letting our kid kick the soccer ball around the school yard with the neighbor kid.  That would mean, of course, staying home, not spilling coffee in the car and missing our opportunity to tell the rec department ref what we thought of his officiating.  More dreaded yet?  We'd be at home with 'nothing to do.' Our self image would take a hit while we aimlessly wandered Facebook being careful not to comment on people's statuses (is that a word?) lest they become aware that we're not busy.

I go to church. I love it.  Church can get complex (but it doesn't have to).  We could scheme and plan and try to come up with impressive purpose statements or catchy vision pieces that set us apart from other local churches.  In my town, one church actually rented a billboard to announce that they were the "largest contemporary church" in the county--specifically pointing out that they, through much sophistication, are now speaking the language of this culture better than other churches.  I don't know--maybe they are.  But if they are, I'm not certain it's something to celebrate.  I guess it depends on what they are actually saying to the culture in their new language.

So yes, churches have to print literature and put up signs and brew coffee on Sunday mornings--I'll let you be the judge if it's gourmet enough for you.  But at the heart of things, church is a gathering of redeemed people who are striving to bring the light of the Gospel to bear on their neighbors through self-sacrifice, painful interactions with fellow sinners and an internal war against their own sin.  It's not complex.  It's hard.  And no amount of sweet logos and 3-D video signage is going to change that.

I don't want a church with a 12-part series on how to be all you can be--I want the Gospel--pure and steady, flowing out of the Word of God and the mouth of the pastor.  I want conviction of sin and lives being transformed--slowly, and I want to lead the way--simply.  I want to learn to pray better at church.  I want peace where there can be peace and war where there must be war.  I want sinning to feel uncomfortable and for holiness to be celebrated in such a way that there's still hope for the sinner and humility for the holy.

So I love it when churches are simple.  I don't want to lead the next revolution in anything (rant:  do you agree with me that the word 'revolution' and off-shoots like 'rebelution' must be banned form book titles now??).  I want to do the simple thing that Jesus called us to do--yes in a modern culture--"Follow me."

Hard, but simple.