Monday, June 21, 2010

Why does your church not feel like family?

The short answer is that because it's not a family. Family is a relationship based in reality. If your church doesn't seem to have the relational bonds similar to those found in a family, it is most likely that your church relationships are not based in reality.

Most churches are ideological associations based on doctrine. If you depart from or question the doctrine then you can no longer be considered a part of the association. The ability to sever the relationship at will is evidence that ideological associations are not based in reality. Relationships based in reality are not sever-able. Family is a relationship based in reality due to genetics. The genetic nature of the relationship causes the relationship to exist despite the will of those in the relationship. There's nothing you can do about it, your father is your father, your brother is your brother, and your mother is your mother whether you want them to be or not. Now you can leave your family, but that doesn't change the reality of the relationship. When we look at the blood and the mud, your family is your family. God meant for us to relate to one another in real ways and in so much he connected us to each other in real ways. You are connected to your family by blood (genetics), you are connected to your community by mud (geography). The reality of these things is inescapable. So what is the real thing that connects us to our church? Doctrine?

Doctrine is ideological, it is words attempting to describe reality, and we all struggle to agree on what it all means. Doctrine is words describing something, but it isn't the something it's describing. For instance, my dad's name is Garen, but the name Garen is not my dad. There are other people named Garen, and they are not my dad. If I were to write "Garen" on a piece of paper and take it to lunch it wouldn't be the same as going to lunch with my dad, Garen. This is because my dad consists of more than the word that is his name, or even of many words and emotions that make up my opinion of him. That's because my dad is not merely my idea of him, he is real and exists independent of me or my opinion of him. Since my dad is real I can have a relationship with him based in reality. When my dad dies I will no longer be able to relate to him in this way. I will have to settle for remembering stories about him while looking at his name written on a tombstone. These words and stories will be a way for me to remember him, but in no way will it be the same as when I had a real relationship with him. When my dad dies I will only be left with a doctrine of him by which to remember him. If I were to begin to relate to my dad using only my doctrine of him prior to his death it would be a great offense to him, as he still wants to speak into my life new things as long as he can while we have a real relationship. Churches that associate based on doctrine are gathering to remember a dead Jesus, and not only does this offend Him but it also ignores the glorious truth that He lives and wants to speak into our lives!

Jesus is real and alive today and therefore cannot be appropriately related to just using stories about Him. Jesus didn't die to give us a book full of words so that we could associate with one another based upon our opinion of how he was, and then based upon those opinions to create ideological associations that fracture at every point of dissonance. The real thing that connects each individual to the church is what Jesus died to give us, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is alive and lives within the Christian, it can be related to in a way that is much more real than even the relationship that I have with my living father. Since our relationships with one another are limited by our ability to express ourselves to each other it is difficult, if not impossible, for one person to fully know another. However since God created us, and desires to dwell within us in the form of his Holy Spirit, we are able to be fully known by God. This relationship and the knowledge and experiences resulting from it are what draw us together as a church. If you have the Holy Spirit, when you get around other people with the Holy Spirit you will experience a connectedness similar to what you feel around people you are connected to by blood and mud. A commonality that is undeniable because it is real, and real because it is undeniable.

Our relationship with Christ and with each other is based on the reality of the Holy Spirit, not on the History of Jesus. Many Christians want to get together and talk all night about theology (I like to do this too). However the consensus arrived upon during these conversations about words is not the thing that is to be used to unite us. Our unification is to exist in the reality of the Holy Spirit that lives within us, and is, in fact, the evidence that Jesus is real and accomplished what he said he accomplished through his sacrifice.

The difficult thing about the association of the Holy Spirit is that although the spiritual is real, it is not visible. Because the spiritual is not visible and cannot be measured using physical means many people assume that it should be intellectually dealt with as we do ideological things such as doctrine. The problem with doctrine is that it consists of dead words. It can only speak what has already been said, and it must be interpreted in order to apply it to our own perceptions of reality. Liberals will use this shortcoming of doctrine as evidence of a freedom to change it to fit their every need. Conservatives will use this shortcoming to condemn every situation that the doctrine doesn't directly address. Both sides fracture within themselves as they exercise their living minds upon dead words and come to different conclusions. We all long to see dead words become real and alive, what we don't realize is that we see it all the time.

Families that maintain a personal relationship with those with whom they are genetically associated ultimately find their unity to be based upon dead words, a covenant. When two people who are not related by blood choose to covenant together in marriage, they become a family. This covenant is witnessed by people at the marriage ceremony, it is documented by a certificate filed with the court clerk, however even at this point it remains an ideal based on dead words, and the continued will of the individuals to remain together is all that holds the promise of the covenant in effect. The family of two they have created can only exist until one of them dies. At that point, if they remain without children, the mutual will to adhere to the dead words that sustain their covenant is no longer possible. However, through the offspring resultant in the consummation of the marriage children are created who by their very nature document into physical reality and bring to life the dead words of a covenant thereby creating a blood family out of two previously unrelated people. In fact this living genetic documentation is far superior in demonstrating the reality of the marriage covenant than are the words of a marriage vow, the marriage certificate, or even the recorded history of eye witness testimony to the marriage itself.

Now, two brothers will be brothers for life because they are dead words brought to life. By means of a dead covenant the offspring were created, and by means of the offspring the covenant leaves the tomb of dead words enters undeniably into the realm of the living. However, the reality of those words can only remain living as long as the genetic code generated by the consummation of the covenant is replicated into the future. The forces of nature, and the will of posterity ultimately all but guarantee that the dead words that were brought to life through our children will once again die. Our words will return to the tomb from where they originated and once again be found by the living to be burdened with the shortcomings of doctrine. We all long to see dead words become real and alive, and we long even more to find the word that will never die. Jesus is the word that will never die, and through a covenant with him, we can bring to life His word for us.

Since the church is called "the bride of Christ", a covenant is implied. One cannot be a bride, unless there is a covenant. What today we call "salvation" is in reality a covenant we make with Christ and Christ with us. When we make this covenant we do the same thing that people do when they make a marriage covenant, the bride takes the name of the groom and they become a new family. We call this "becoming a Christian" because we are taking the name of Christ. In the same way as the marriage between two people this marriage also is an act of will, God's will and our own. Also this marriage has an offspring that brings the words of the covenant to life, however the offspring of your marriage to Christ is you, re-born into his family. His spirit now lives in you, and is the evidence that the word of his covenant is alive in you. You have brothers and sisters in Him and they are evidenced by this same life in them. When you gather together as family, you are the church, His bride. Not associating based on dead words, but relating to one another and to Christ based upon a living word that is the evidence of his Covenant with you.

The Holy Spirit living in us as living evidence of the words of Christ’s covenant with us is what binds us together as a church. It is as real as the blood that binds you to family and the mud that binds you to your neighbor. Don’t settle for a church pushing dead words and ideals as the means for your association. Seek to marry Christ and look for his other brides. Let his Holy Spirit living in you bring to you home to your church family.

Some more ideas and questions to explore on this:

Explore the concept of “whatever is bound on earth is bound in heaven” as it relates to covenants.

Explore the statement made by Paul that the “eye cannot say to the hand ‘I have no need of you’” as it relates to the relationship of believers through the Holy Spirit. I.e. it is similar to saying to your brother “you’re not my brother”, it simply is not a statement that can be true.

Go into more detail as to the differences between the old covenant and the new covenant in that the new covenant comes with the promise of the Holy Spirit which is the result of consummation of the covenant as the new creation in Christ. The old covenant was a covenant of words and will. God's will was to remain in the covenant, and Israels will came and went. The new covenant is a covenant that is consumated with a spiritual rebirth. Example might be a marraige between two people who have no children, their marriage is a covenant of words and will. When they have children the covenant becomes flesh, just as the covenant of God became flesh in Christ and our covenant with him is then born into spirit...

Explore the necessity of Christ’s sacrifice in establishing the new covenant.


-Thanks to my facebook friend Melissa Simone for getting this thought process started via a Mark Driscol video with the same title as this post. I think the video is good, but I don't think he addresses the subject in it's entirety. Saying that serving is the key to making something feel like family simply isn't true. Either the relationship is real or it isn't and no amount of activity will change it.