Open the doors and see all the people

I was raised in church. Every week my Mom would get me dressed in my little suit and take me to the Cradle Roll, or The Primary, or The Juniors. It was a small church and our classes were small. We had bible races, where we would look up the verse the teacher called out as quickly as we could. I was a star in the bible race. We would sing songs. The universal, Jesus Loves Me, This I Know, For the Bible Tells Me So. We used hand motions and said, “This is the Church, This is the Steeple, Open the Doors and See All the People.”

Church was great. If you lived by the rules, then you were “in,” part of the “remnant,” assured of a place in heaven. Unfortunately, when I was pushing thirty, the church of my youth and I had a parting of the ways. For about ten years I wandered in the wilderness, until a creative pastor started a church designed to reach out to people like me, “back-slidden” baby boomers. The church he started was creative and contemporary and gracious, and the next thing you know, I was “all up in it,” leading worship, serving as a small group leader, on the church council and eventually executive pastor.

This Is The Church

As a youngster growing up I was taught that being a member of the church, serving in the church, attending church, giving tithe to the church, were the minimum prerequisites for salvation. Being kicked out of the church was a very bad thing, for now your “membership” and therefore your standing with God was in jeopardy. When I was kicked out, because of my divorce with my first wife, it was a devastating blow to my sense of who I was. I was no longer a member of The Church, welcome to attend services and serve the congregation.

It was such a relief when Pastor Dan, the founder of that new church plant, said that we could all be members, even if we had been divorced. Now I could be a part of The Church again.

This is the Steeple

Years later I watched John Wimber’s video testimony (I’m a Fool for Christ, Who’s Fool are you?) as he described his first visit to “church.” It was hilarious. In addition to describing his experience, I thought that John was trying to say that “church” was strange. It seemed to me that John was trying to say that the Vineyard was a different kind of church, and I think he wanted it to be. I think John was trying to say that if we can get outside of our stained-glass sanctuaries and meet people halfway with contemporary music and a supernaturally natural approach to ministry that a new generation could be reached.

Something about the lack of a steeple made the Vineyard very attractive to my baby boomer consciousness and it was only a few years after my first exposure to Wimber and his teachings that I accidentally became a Vineyard pastor for a few years. Now, nearly 15 years later, I am learning a new reality.

See All The People

As a former pastor who closed his church about ten years ago, I have experienced another ten years in the “churchless” wilderness. I am not saying that I have not visited a number of churches, looking for one that would feel like home, because I have. I have struggled mightily to overcome the notion that was ingrained in my childish psyche that if I was not a “member” of a church I was not part of God’s family. I have tried to understand there might be a difference between “following Jesus” and being a “church member.” I am still struggling with these questions.

These days I am thinking about “the people,” not only those like myself who have been a part of “church” and are no longer a part of it, but also those who have never been a part of church, and don’t know or care about ever being a part of it.

The Apostle Paul said, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:14,15, The Message)

I believe we need a new understanding of “church,” one that is not limited by the number of fingers that show when we open our hands. We need to “see all the people,” those inside church walls, yes, but also those outside of the church’s walls. We need to get outside our man-made boxes and limitations and see what God sees, not church buildings or steeples, but people.

We need to take the message of the apostle Peter to heart and become “living stones that are being used to build a spiritual house.” (1Peter 2:5, Contemporary English Version) This new spiritual house needs to overcome the bad reputation that we have given Jesus. The reputation that he and his followers are judgmental and, in some cases, hateful. We need to “Live such good lives among [those around us] that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1Peter 2:12 NIV)

Whether we are emerging, or missional, transformational, incarnational, ancient-future, neo-monastic, or liturgical, it seems that we need to make a commitment to “seeing all the people” in the way that God sees them and loving them in the way that God loves them. Now that is a spiritual house I would like to be a part of.