Comments on: Always read the label: diagnosing me and my church pains

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:01:47 +0000

thanks Carl that is a great thought provoking analogy for me.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:09:39 +0000

Thanks Becky. I sometimes joke that vineyard isn’t a cult as we’re just not organised enough for that

I know where you are coming from, i do it all the time in every social situation I am in. There are people who i can relate with and others who i can’t so I shape my encounters to try and avoid/exclude the latter.

When it comes to church i more than happy for anyone to turn up just so long as i can continue to self select my relationships and whose lives I will get dirty playing in. I find that the shock difference for me is how often Jesus would stop for any individual that was yelling for him.

I also find inclusion a difficult one, how do you apply a judgement rather than a rule? So that sometimes with some people certain things are excluded to help support changes in behaviour. I’m thinking that this is not un-Jesus like, for example, his invitation to the rich young ruler to give away all his cash and then come and follow him. A pre-condition of joining his disciples was this shock request to give up his cash.

Maybe in that sense I often deliberately self-exclude myself whilst insisting I be included. In other words as long as I can still do x or y or still have w & z I’ll follow Jesus. Maybe Jesus won’t settle for 2nd place and neither shud we? What jolts us out of this thinking? Maybe the shock of finding we can’t do everything without giving up something?

And if its a judgement rather than a rule it means that we’re going to be failable in it and get it right sometimes and wrong other times?

Enuff rambling from me, what do you think?

By: Charlie Boyd

Charlie Boyd — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:50:46 +0000

Becky
There is whacky guy out there in Blog Land called Martin Zender at martinzender.com who has written a book entitled ‘How to Quit Church Without Quitting God’.I got 5 sent over to Ireland because it is like a sledgehammer that knocks one out of the ‘Churchy’ or ‘Christian’ world view!He is a believer in Jesus by the way!!!! Anyway he has a great chapter where he takes Bob Larsons (TV exorcist guy and pastor) signs of Cult membership (Moonies,Scientology etc.) and applies them to ‘church based chritianity’.The results are scarey but hilarious – he proves by Christianity’s own definition of a cult that it is actually one itself.This book will start thousands of wake up discussions.Get it!

Charlie

By: Carl

Carl — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:10:01 +0000

Hi Folks, I’ve been thinking a LOT about some of the thoughts and emotions we’ve been sharing in this thread. And this came to me the other day on the walk to work. A thirsty man is interested in the water and not the cup.. I pondered on this and I think wherever and however you experience being church, ultimately it comes down to two things, are you being filled with The water, and are you sharing The water with the thirsty. Because in my own experience after wandering in the desert place for 26 years of my life, I didn’t care whether the cup was plastic, paper, polystyrene or finest bone china. I needed The water that Jesus offered. And that stands for me today, I need filling, renewing and refreshing and I’ll take it in whatever container/vessel God uses. This applies to our prayer, our worship, our fellowship, God uses anything and everything to get past the deafening roar of our own self powered jet engined egos. From time to time he uses people and places from which we don’t want to hear or go to. If you only want to drink from a mug He offers a cup, often times offending our sensibilities and causing discomfort. But still we thirst, and eventually when we can abate our thirst no more we reach out for that initially refused drink. And once we get past our initial discomfort and distaste, we taste that its good, I mean really good. And we realise its not the cup or the holding of the cup, but the thirst and the drinking which matter. So we begin to look for and accept The water whenever and wherever we find it irrespective of the outward appearance of the vessel. And we begin to see that those around us might be thirsty also. And the ones we thought would only drink from a contextually relevant injection moulded drinks faciliatation device actually might be interested in your chipped and cracked Sesame Street mug! So in closing lets keep it forefront that we’re dealing with The God who is more than enough, the kettles always on and He loves filling whatever we bring to the table…..

By: linda llewellyn

linda llewellyn — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:16:49 +0000

Never give up, keep on trying you will get there in the end. Look to the Lord not at people as they will always let you down. There is no perfect church.

By: Becky

Becky — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:32:38 +0000

Oops.
Symptom:
Church does not feel like my experience of “family” – it’s lonely and exclusive
Diagnosis:
as above
Treatment:
Hmmm… I’m trying to avoid saying what I believe, which is to spend time elsewhere to get perspective, yet remain linked to remind myself of the positives, and trust and believe that I will regain the motivation I have lost. I’m sure the cult members would recommend taking responsibility for all of the above myself, and throwing myself into service and awkward social encounters and God will find me there but I struggle to believe that at the moment.
Possible side effects:
Leaving church. I’ve seen it happen. The above scenario is not purely my own experience, which is nice because I thought I was going crazy

By: Becky

Becky — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:22:34 +0000

Symptom 6: Not being able to clearly distinguish between your church and a cult.
I was asked by a semi-Christian friend to distinguish between church and cult, and I had to conclude that the line can sometimes be a little blurry. We can be so unintentionally exclusive to those not ‘in the fold,’ and so horribly condemning and judgemental of those who are (maybe just temporarily) hanging around by the fence.

I confess and apologise that I’ve done it myself in the past; it’s certainly a horrible experience to be on the receiving end.

Church is a club – clique even – and there are joining and belonging rules like in any other. It’s probably right and fair to have some, but I’m certain the Jesus I love and experience would not freeze out or alienate those who were struggling, questioning, or feeling confused. Of course he had the advantage of being able to know one’s thoughts and deeds (!) and wasn’t just guessing blind, but I’m sure the ‘believing the best’ myth is at best just that – a myth. We’re too human to do otherwise, and we resort to gossip and Chinese whispers rather than being Jesus to each other.

To hear horrible things said about truly good people, and see others of more questionable motive and gifting rewarded and encouraged time and again… it easily leads me to forget and ignore all that IS good about church.

That’s what drives me away.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:19:00 +0000

Thanks Mel, much appreciated – you’ve made me stop and say thanks to my church community too and remind me of the good as well as the bad.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:17:03 +0000

Thanks Linda, it’s good to remind ourselves again that we are all imperfect as human beings and therefore church is always going to be limited.

How churches structure themselves is another post really but I’m sure that there are many models that work out how to provide family/community care and contact and house churches is certainly one of those models.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:14:40 +0000

Thanks Becky, i’m glad its not only me who has all these crazy thoughts and you could recognize some of your own experiences too . So do you have your own possible side effects that you are experiencing?