Thoughts & opinion from the southampton vineyard team
The mystery of the church
by Matt Hyam on 19th July, 2009
“Agape” – loving totally sacrificially, without any expectation or hope of anything in return. Doesn’t sound like a pop song, when you put it like that, does it?
But we are Christians, so that kind of love should be easy! After all, Jesus modelled that for us, didn’t he? He died for us. We know that and so it is easy for us to respond to that in love.
Isn’t it?
Love – agape – its a BIG word. So big that it means that we just cannot carry on the way that we were. It means that others are always, always, always more important than I am.
Yeah, but I am really comfortable. I’m settled. I have a nice group of like-minded friends around me and I’m happy like that.
I wonder.
What about the others? You know, “them”*. The one’s who aren’t in your circle and, frankly, if they were then your circle would not be so much fun anymore.
Is it possible to be defined by love and not include “them”.
Things have changed. We used to be content in our little homogenous group – we even did things for “them” – bought food; clothes; helped – went out of our way.
But then God stuck his ore in, and messed everything up. I’m not sure we can be like we were anymore.
Actually, I am not sure we ever could, really.
I used to think that I was meant to plant a church like the one that I would like to come to – in terms of teaching about meetings and music and infrastructure etc. But then, what about people who are not like me? What about those who have not had the benefits that I have had? You know, the people with whom Jesus spent all his time?
We’re meant to be defined by love. If we are, then “they” have to be in the middle of it, because Jesus spent his life surrounded by “them” and he is our model for “love”.
Isn’t he?
The mystery of the church should be that there are so many different people with different backgrounds and different experiences from all demographics all living together in genuine unity and love. So, we need to change. We cannot carry on in a way that excludes anyone. Not in our Sunday meetings, our housegroups or our friendship groups. We’ll have to break out of our stereotypes, get to know people not like us, change the way we do things and realise that this is the way that it is meant to be this way. Because that is what Jesus was like.
Man, its hard being a Christian sometimes!
*technical term for people not like us
Yikes that’s challenging, are there two kinds of “them”? Ones who are different but have a similar set of values, and then people who are totally different? My thinking is that although Jesus hung out with a lot of “them”, his closest friends were the disciples who (at least some of the time) seemed to be in tune with what he was doing.
Either way around, we had to radically change how we “did church” to kick ourselves out of the worship = songs habit, what are we going to change to kick ourselves out of the “people like us” habit?
Who knows what we’ll have to change. Our hearts, I suspect.
Actually the disciples were a real mishmash of people. Fishermen and Judas (who was posh), a tax collector and a zealot – natural enemies, and then a carpenter in the middle of it! Then the hangers-on included wealthy women and a retired prostitute, a pharisee and various others.
Even ignoring the fact that he spent a lot of his time hanging around “sinners”, you’d still have to say that his main group of mates pretty much covered the FULL spectrum of society in first century Palestine!
Hmmm.
Hi. So maybe (actually, certainly) Jesus managed to exude something that was appealing to all types of people – fishermen, ‘posh’ tax collectors etc. So Christians should obviously cover the whole spectrum. But should one church try to cover the whole spectrum? There are many different churches, each doing ‘church’ a different way, and in so doing, appealing to a different group of people (by presenting Jesus in a relevant way to that people group). That’s not an excuse not to do anything though, as I’m guessing in the west, the ‘poor’ church is very underrepresented. I wonder whether one church can represent Jesus in a relevant way to all types of people in one service?
This is SO what I have been thinking, with regard to one individual who is on the fringe of the church ( big Vineyard, that is, right in the middle of the little vineyard, thats us lot out here!). We chatted about church meetings yesterday, and she said she found it ‘boring’ and didn’t understand it… and although the people were lovely and kind, she wants to go back to her indigenous church. Which is FINE by me, apart from it being 2 bus journeys to get there, and two to get back! But what you are talking about Matt, is totally what I was thinking about this morning, just now, literally, as I was putting the washing out, just before I looked at this – which shows that you are in tune with me if not the Lord ( but I think I come close) – which is, that the teaching and even the songs still assume a level of literacy and critical thinking which you and I might be able to muster up once a week, but which is completely outside of lots of people’s headspace. I don’t have any answers. Will write a book soon though. I’m gonna call it ‘I still have more washing than line’. What do you think?
I’m just wondering though, won’t you always be excluding somebody, even though you don’t mean to?
What about the person who has felt disconnected in a previous church but connected in yours, where they had felt bored but now don’t? I’m not saying you aren’t onto something, I’m just a bit curious.
True.
But I do not think that anyone should feel as though they are not wanted.
Also, if we are going to stake serious going to the marginalised/poor/oppressed etc then we are going to have to work out whether we hold them at arm’s length or embrace them. I am pretty sure that I know which Jesus would have gone for.
We are human. We will get it wrong.
Also, I cannot help thinking that if someone feels excluded, it really should not be because we have actually excluded them in our hearts.
When God called my wife and I to open our house and build a stronger sense of community I thought it would be cool. Hang with friends, reach out to the poor at the park, get involved with recovery ministry, invite my neighbors, whatever. Much to my surprise most of my friends really didn’t make it (it could be because we held it on a Sunday afternoons). But we somehow attracted the couples that were experiencing problems with their marriage. I wasn’t really expecting that. Not to mention people of different faiths started to be regulars (mainly my next door neighbor and any of the other types that some people have invited from the group). I was stretched to say the least. When I served the poor on Monday nights at my church I knew I was “feeding the poor”. When I opened my house on Sunday afternoons I didn’t know that I would be feeding the spiritually poor. It was draining and difficult. One of the many things I learned from this experience is that the people we live next door to, the struggling young couple who can’t even look at each other or the woman who literally talks to voices in her head need love (agape). Are we able to love (agape)? My comfortable idea of “home group” wasn’t comfortable at all. In fact it broke all my ideals. To love the unlovely, or the smelly, or the Mormon became tangible simply by opening my house to anyone who wanted to come. Break me open God.