What is the Church?
If we look back to the early church just trying to navigate a new reality in real-time, they referred to themselves literally, through the Greek word ekklesia, as the called out ones.1 When I entered seminary, on my very first day, I had a God moment of clarity. I walked swiftly into the registration office and changed my degree program and candidacy in the ELCA from Master of Divinity (Pastor) to Master of Arts in Religion (Deacon). Some friends and family who didn’t understand the difference asked me, “why aren’t you going to finish seminary?” I was. I did. I have a Master of Art in Religion in Christian Education and Christian Spirituality, but no, I am not a pastor. I didn’t feel called to administer the sacraments in a single church or lifetime of churches.
I changed my degree program because I felt called to have one foot in the Church and one foot in the “world.” I have spent my entire career in faith-based nonprofit organizations that serve and advocate for God’s people on the margins. My friend Sarah, also a Deacon, told me once that she loved the way I describe what I do as a Deacon. She uses it when she explains her own role to others.
I don’t remember my exact words, but basically, my role as a Deacon is to take the hands of the people in a church and introduce them to a world that needs them to share the Gospel – the Good News – a world full of people who need to know that God loves them.
It’s like at the theme park Carowinds in Charlotte, NC where you can stand in NC and SC at the same time – one leg in both. I always loved that as a teenager, and that is what I see as a Deacon’s call. I have strived to have one foot and one hand in both the church and the world.
This means that the reality of my call depends on the interconnectedness of the Church and the world knowing each other, seeing each other, listening to each other, and recognizing God in each other. Barbara Brown Taylor tells us that “church is not a stopping place but a starting place for discerning God's presence in this world. By offering people a place where they may engage the steady practice of listening to divine words and celebrating divine sacraments, church can help people gain a feel for how God shows up—not only in Holy Bibles and Holy Communion but also in near neighbors, mysterious strangers, sliced bread, and grocery store wine.”2
If we gather in a starting place to listen and then we are called out into the world, is there a place the Church is not or cannot be? I am reminded of that little song we used to sing with our fingers as children:
The church is not a building
The church is not a steeple
The church is not a resting place
The church is the people
(Sorry if you have that stuck in your head the rest of the day – but really I am not.)
For me, the church is the starting place for recognizing that we are not alone. God has given us to each other. God is with us.
When I interview people of faith about why they were looking for a church, most of the time the answer directly relates to the desire for community and belonging. I will say it again, for me, the church is the starting place for recognizing that we are not alone. God has given us to each other. God is with us. Whether we make that divine connection within the four walls of a building or Christ shows himself to us through a connection with another person, the Church is there to remind us we belong and not that we belong to a building with four walls, but to a people of God – we belong to God. Ephesians 4 starting at verse 15 tells us that “speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from who the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.”
The Church is the body and Christ is the head, leading us in his ways. What is it that we say on Easter morning that Christ does? Christ goes. Christ suffers. Christ dies. Christ comes again. Christ does all this in the name of love for us – and we, the Church, are called to do the same – we take each other by the hand into the world to do the same in the name of love for each other – for our neighbors. Because we are first loved by the Divine, we are then able to love.
And, while Christ is a perfect head, we are not a perfect body, which is another reason I used the word Church. We can certainly look at the lives of the individuals inside the walls of any church building and see the imperfections. We can look at the Church as an institution and see the imperfections. Friends, we can look in the mirror and see the imperfections of the Church.
The Church is where we are, and where we are is living as a community of individuals who believe we know better for ourselves than God knows for us – so yes, we are broken. For me, a gift of the Church is that we are not broken alone; we are broken together.
My husband is a pastor. He shared once that he loves the point in the baptismal service when the parents of the child being baptized are asked a list of “will you” or “do you” questions. Their answers are of course scripted, “we will,” but they are also small. In most congregations, only the pastor standing next to them can hear their voices, alone, tiny, nervous. And then the pastor turns to the congregation and asks them to make promises to the one being baptized. “Will you?”
The way my husband describes it, the small, quiet voices of the parents, standing there alone, get absorbed and magnified by the community of voices in the congregation – WE WILL.
Collectively, their voices raise up the backs and shoulders of parents just trying to get through a service without their child crying. Then it comes again. Do you believe in God the Father, and together we all say, “WE BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.”
Collective voices speaking promises to each other. Promises we will certainly break.
Of course, we break our promises. Parents break their promises to their children – I have. The people of the Church break their promises to God’s children – even to themselves. Broken promises hurt. The Church has hurt people because the Church is a community of broken people. This is not an excuse; this is a reality. This is a truth spoken in love – in candor. But the promises we make as God’s people are not dependent on us, they are dependent on God keeping God’s promises – and friends – that. Is. What. God. Does. God keeps God’s promises.
In our baptisms, God comes down, forgives us, claims us, and calls us children. God is the subject of the verb.
“Child of God, you are marked with the cross of Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit forever,” the pastor says. I must say that I do wish here, in the spirit of my husband’s description of a baptism service that our hymnals would include a collective shout of the word FOREVER from the Church after the blessing. My little row at church says it to ourselves. We can proclaim forever because again – it is God keeping the promise of forever – and the messages of the world can often cause us to forget that glorious truth. That means that we are never alone. We are forever claimed.
I have learned from “church people” my entire life. I have been loved on, prayed for, challenged by, and fed by the people of God since the day of my birth. And like with all relationships, I have been hurt by the Church, been proud of the Church, and been disappointed in the Church. I have also loved the Church deeply. All these feelings are real and valid and complicated and messy. Over the years, as my own understanding of trauma and pain-based behavior has grown, it has become easier for me to love the Church deeply. I can better see the reactions of others as their own trauma and recognize the kinship of the brokenness.
I believe the Church needs reform, but I also believe the way to that reform is through becoming more comfortable as individuals and as a collective with talking about our faith journeys and through deepening our practices of listening to and for the Holy Spirit when we are presented with new and uncertain realities.
Church Candor is about practices for deeper listening. Through the brokenness of the Church inside and outside the walls, I long for a time of deeper listening – and I mean specifically listening to and for God to breathe the Holy Spirit into our lives.
The noises and voices in the world are deafening. Social media memes and trolling comments, the news, picket signs, and billboards are so loud I fear we no longer know how to distinguish the voice of God. Everything has been boiled down to stinging soundbites.
We might believe we should or do simply know what is right and good and just, but we are broken. What if we leaned into what God has to say for us – today – in this time of “isms” and unrest and division. What if we stopped thinking we know and start realizing we have space to learn? What if we started listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit in the words and stories of our siblings who aren’t like us? We, the individual people, and we the collective Church inside and outside the walls, what if we spent time listening?
As I mentioned in my post Fear to Love No. 1 – the idea of accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior and then leaving all of my bad behind me was daunting. If we, at that moment, are admitting that we are lost and broken and sinful beings, why would we think that we would automatically know all the bad or recognize all the brokenness? Why would we think we no longer have anything new to hear and learn?
During 2020 and 2021 I will admit that it felt much like I was just holding on for dear life. I allowed myself to be sucked in and drawn deeper into the mire of toxic messaging and it fed me, but it fed me hate and bitterness and distrust. There was a point when it became too much for my heart and my body to hold. The more I allow this toxicity in, the less space I left for hearing the heart of God, but the Spirit still breathes. God is still there. It is the idea that the wolf we feed is the one that gets stronger.
So, during 2022, I am committed to daily morning prayer and practicing deeper listening. I am committed to returning to the skills I learned from the Church about how to listen. Places where the Church has not hurt me, but rather equipped me.
Regardless of why you are here friend, I honor your place and space. I honor your experience and feelings. Your experiences and feelings are valid, and I am here to listen. Contact me or comment below. Your journey is not my journey. I pray you read these words and use them to spark deeper listening to what the Divine has to say in your life.
Reference Guide
1. Theology for the Community of God by Stanley Grenz
2. Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor page 165