If I can be honest (and I believe I can be), my biggest struggle last year and currently is finding a church. I have moved past the point of frustration, through apathy and I’m now to the point of desperation. I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem has to be me. Maybe I’m being to picky. Maybe I’m making this all about me. Maybe I just need to stop being so selfish and just pick a church to serve in. If it were only that easy…

Here are a few things that people THINK that I want in a church:

1. An active singles ministry
2. Rockin’ worship music
3. An active singles ministry
4. Small/Home/Cell/Life/Community/Anything-But-Sunday-School Groups
5. An active singles ministry
6. New

1, 3, 5: Please, please, please don’t tell me about your singles ministry. I’m not sure where the idea came from that all single people want to do is eat dinner with other single people from the church. I know I’m socially awkward, but I don’t really need help making friends. Single people should BE IN ministry, we don’t need a “special” ministry for us.

2. Rockin’ Music: Growing up in the church, hymns are actually very familiar to me. If I’m humming a tune at work or around the house, there’s a pretty good chance that it’s a hymn. That said, I’m not really all that concerned with the style of music, rather the content. If worship is our response to who God is, it should be meaningful. I love the old hymns but I also love churches that write their own stuff.

4. Small Groups: This one actually has been a recent change for me. I’m not saying I don’t like small groups–I think they are essential. What I am saying is that small groups that meet throughout the week are not Sunday school. What I mean by Sunday school is teaching. Small groups are more about Christian community which includes teaching, but not to the extent that can be facilitated in a class-like setting.

6. New: New is scary, especially when it comes to the Church and scripture. Don’t try to invent something new, TEACH us tradition and history. I don’t need cool videos and candles or lights. Teach me and encourage me and EXPECT me to read the Bible.

Here are a few things that I would LOVE in a church:

1. Old people: Okay, so I don’t typically refer to them as “old people”, but in a lot of churches that have focused on attracting the younger crowd, they have neglected the older crowd. These churches have a lot of zeal and energy, but 30 year-olds haven’t been doing much of anything for 20 or 30 years. I think wisdom and experience are vital in a church.

2. Food: I love food. I love cooking food, I love eating food, I love watching TV shows about food. More importantly, I love cooking and eating food with other people. Sure, we can go out to eat at that Mexican restaurant (again), but there is something much more intimate about cooking and sharing a meal with someone. It’s kind of like family.

I’m certain I can find plenty of churches that are full of old people that have a pot-luck or covered dish meal at some point in the week, and if only it were that simple! I suppose my next post should be about the deeper things that have made finding a church so difficult. Things like beliefs. It’s complicated; more complicated than it should be.

We sang this in church yesterday:

I Repent
Derek Webb

I repent, I repent,
of my pursuit of America’s dream
I repent, I repent
of living like I deserve anything
of my house, my fence, my kids, my wife
in our suburb where we’re safe and white
I am wrong and of these things I repent.

I repent, I repent
of parading my liberty
I repent, I repent
of paying for what I get for free
and of the way I believe that I am living right
by trading sins for others that are easier to hide
I am wrong and of these things I repent

I repent
judging by a law that even I can’t keep
of wearing righteousness like a disguise
to see through the planks in my own eyes

I repent, I repent
of trading truth for false unity
I repent, I repent
of confusing peace and idolatry
of caring more of what they think than what I know of what we need
of domesticating You until You look just like me
I am wrong and of these things
I repent.

I’ve had a fairly interesting denominational journey — lots of labels have been assigned by myself and by others, none of which really helped me understand my faith.  If I label myself as a Christian, does that make me a Christian?  If only it were that easy!  Sadly, many are duped into believing that it is.

The problem with labels is that if I tell someone I’m Baptist or a Calvinist, I am then forced to describe what I mean by Baptist or Calvinist, because I have no idea what they understand the terms to mean.  At this point, we must agree on what I mean by “Baptist” or “Calvinist” or else there is a great risk of miscommunication.  I borrowed this from Mortimer Adler’s book titled “How to Read a Book”:

“A term is not a word — at least, not just a word without further qualifications.  If a term and a word were exactly the same, you would only have to find the important words in a book in order to come to terms with it.  But a word can have many meanings, especially an important word.  If the author uses a word in one meaning, and the reader reads it in another, words have passed between them, but they have not come to terms.   Where there is unresolved ambiguity in communication, there is no communication or at best communication must be incomplete.”

I’ve learned that it is much easier to put on a label rather than surrender to it as the conclusion of exploration, thought and experience.  For most of my life I have been “Methodist” because that was what the sign said on the building, not because I spent many sleepless nights discerning what it was that I actually believed.  In the same vain, I was a “Christian” because I did what Christians were suppose to do — go to church, (occasionally) read the Bible and pray.  The labels were convenient, and when I used them people assumed things about me that I even assumed about myself.  Then God happened…

August 19, 2002, I’m at Metro Bible Study in Plano, Texas completely broken.  For the first time in my life I knew that God loved me.  I didn’t walk an aisle, or pray a prayer — I didn’t even “decide to follow Jesus” — I just sat there, unable to move, basking in His presence.  It wasn’t until last week that I realized this was the moment God saved me.  I thought I was suppose to make a decision!  What about my free will?  How can my love for God be genuine if I had no choice?  Maybe the “choice” was so obvious, I didn’t even have to make it.  Maybe the offer was so irresistible that I could do nothing but accept it.  When your eyes are opened, you don’t decide to see — you just see.

“When the Spirit illuminates the heart, then a part of the man sees which never saw before; a part of him knows which never knew before, and that with a kind of knowing which the most acute thinker cannot imitate.” A.W. Tozer

As vividly as I can recall that day, I only remember the date because afterwards I bought the tape (tape? honestly?) of that night’s message.  It was some tall, skinny guy I had never heard of named Matt Chandler (that might help to explain my “man-crush” on Matt — though it still doesn’t excuse it haha).  Before that moment, my basis for calling myself a Christian was unsubstantiated — it simply wasn’t true.

The funny thing is, since becoming a Christian I have used the term less and less.  After coming the the conclusion that I was one, the label just wasn’t as important to me anymore.