Embers

This blog originally posted Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Current mood: lonely Category: Life

Well, camp is over for the summer. Got done with CIY three weeks ago and Junior High Camp last week.

I'm always a little sad after camp. Every year. It took me a little while to realize why, but now I know. It's community. For one straight week, I get to live in a Christian community, eating, drinking, woshiping, sleeping, playing, etc... all in Christian community. Just like the first church in Acts.

We live, love, laugh, cry, argue, and play together. Every meal is communion. Every thing we do is worship. We are focussed on each other and on God.

I used to think camp was a nice break from the real world. Now, I realize that the real world is an unfortunate break from where I'm supposed to be.

The theme of CIY this year was, "you were never meant to be alone". That is so true. The level of relationship that is achievable in a closeknit Christian community is beyond anything else. And, best of all, it is just a peak at what eternity will be like in pure and total relationship with God.

The unfortunate truth is that our culture has become so 'me' centered and focused on our impassioned search for brief fixes of happiness, that we no longer attempt real community. We have begun to look at church as a community center that is there to provide services to us and not as a family that needs and loves us, a body that we are an irreplaceable part of. No, now we switch churches on a dime because we 'aren't being fed' or because another church has 'better worship'.

This church hopping, which is encoraged by many of the McMega Churches has been terribly destructive to the real relational community that can (and at times has) existed in the past.
Yeah, they have latte's down the street, and 7 services every weekend at the one around the corner. This one has a special group that caters just to my specific interests and that one sends their youth group to Disneyland for free every year.

Can we be honest here? All that is a 2nd rate chasing of the world. Vegas and Hollywood both do a better job and at least they are honest that the glitz and glamour is all fake. We aren't supposed to go to church to be entertained or catered to. We are supposed to worship God in community that is infinitely more joyful than a few moments of passive pleasure.

When did we forget that a relationship requires commitment, time invested, intentional love. How did we lose the knowledge that community is hard to build but infinitely worth it. Where did we misplace the understanding that God wants us to be a body, a family, a relationship?

If you can read this and believe in Jesus, I dare you to reconsider how you look at your faith. Are you a passive recipient of services? Are you a bored occasional visitor? Do you skip going to service because you ahave other 'important' things to do? Are you church hopping or shopping? If you are, open your Bible and look at Acts 2:42-25. That type of vibrant, loving, committed community is what we are supposed to have. It is achievable. It just requires you.
Like any relationship, it requires time. It requires you to be there. It requires you to want to grow closer to other people. It requires you to invest in others. It requires you to serve others. It requires you.

We don't need to reinvent Christianity to appeal to the masses. We just need to return to it.